V. J. LENIN
SELECTED WORKS
TWO-VOLUME EDITION
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
The English translation of the TWO-VOLUME
EDITION OF SELECTED WORKS of Lenin
follows in every respect the latest Russian
edition published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin
Institute," Moscow, the only difference being that
"What Is To Be Done?" and "One Step Forward,
Two Steps Back," are given in the abridged
form published by the author in 1908.
CONTENTS
1 'age
Preface 13
S T A LIN: LEX IS AND LES1S1XM
A LET'l LR BY COMRADE STALIN published in Rabochaya Gazeta on the
occasion of the first anniversary of Lenin's death 20-21
ON THE DEATH OF LENIN: A Speech Delivered at the Second All-
Union Congress of Soviets, January 26, 1924 21
LENIN AS THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER OF THE RUSSIAN
COMMUNIST PARTY: Written on the Occasion of Lenin's Fiftieth
Birthday 25
1. Lenin as tbc Organizer of the Russian Communist Party ... 26
2. Lenin as the Leader of the Russian Communist Party 23
LENIN: Speech Delivered at a Memorial Meeting of the Kremlin Mili-
tary School, January 28, 1924 31
A Mountain Eagle 31
Modesty 32
Force of Logic 38
No Whining 33
No Conceit 34
Fidelity to Principle 34
Faith in the Masses 3."»
The Genius of Revolution 36
INTERVIEW GIVEN TO THE FIRST AMERICAN LABOUR DL1J -
GATION (Excerpt) September 9, 1927 39
Question 1 and Stalin's Answer .'^9
Question 12 and Stalin's Answer -13
SPEECH DELIVERED AT A MEETING OF VOTERS OF THE STALIN
ELECTORAL AREA, Moscow, December 11, 1937, in the Grand
Theatre , 45
SPEECH DELIVERED AT A RECEPTION IN THE KREMLIN TO
HIGHER EDUCATIONAL WORKERS, May 17, 1938 50
SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE RED ARMY PARADE ON THE RED
SQUARE, Moscow, November 7, 1941 52
8 CONTENTS
V. I. LENIN: SELECTED WORK*
ON MARX AND MARXISM
THE THREE SOURCES AND THE THREE COMPONENT PARTS
OF MARXISM 59
THE HISTORICAL DESTINY OF THh DOCTRINE OF KARL MARX 64
MARXISM AND REVISIONISM 07
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CREATION OF A SOCIAL-
DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY IN RUSSIA
>&HAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE AND HOW THfc,Y
FIGHT THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS (A Reply to Articles in RVS-
SKOYE BOOATSTVO Opposing the Marxists) 77
THE TASKS OF THE RUSSIAN SOC I \L-DEMOC RATS 181
THE FORMATION OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC
LABOUR PARTY
APPEARANCE OF THE BOLSHEVIK AND MENSHEVIK GROUPS
WITHIN THE PARTY
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? Burnitig Questions of out Mov<-mrnt 14<»
Preface to the First Edition 149
I. Dogmatism and "Freedom of Criticism" 1.V2
A. What is "Freedom of Criticism"? 152
B. The New Advocates of "Freedom of Criticism" 1.V>
C. Criticism in Russia 15^
D. Engels on the Importance of the Theoretical Struck .... 164
II. The Spontaneity of the Masses and the Class Consciousness of
Social-Democracy 16<V
A. The Beginning of the Spontaneous Revival 169
B. Bowing to Spontaneity. Habochaya Mysl 17*2
C. The "Self-Emancipation Group'1 and Itabocheyt Dyelo .... ISO
III. Trade Union Politics and Social-Democratic Politics 186
A. Political Agitation and Its Restriction by the Economists . . 1N4
B. A Tale of How Martynov Rendered Plekhanov More Profound 197
C. Political Exposures and "Training in Revolutionary Activity" 196
D. What Is There in Common Between Economism and Terrorism? 200
E. The Working Class as Champion of Democracy 203
F. Again "Slanderers/' Again "Mystifiers" 214
IV.- The Primitiveness of the Economists and the Organization of
Revolutionaries 216
A. What Are Primitive Methods? 217
k. Primitive Methods and Economism 220
C. Organization of Workers and Organization of Revolutionaries 224
D. The Scope of Organizational Work 236
CONTENTS 9
E. "Conspirativc" Organization and "Democracy** 241
F. J-ocal and All- Russian Work 248
V. The "Plan** for the All- Russian Political Newspaper 256
B. Can a Newspaper Be a Collective Organizer? 257
C. What Type of Organization Do We Require? 266
Conclusion 271
ONE STEP FORWARD, T\YO STF-PS BACK (The Crisis in Our Party) . . 275
Preface to the First Edition 275
A. The Preparations for the Congress 278
B. The Significance of the Various Groupings at the Congress . . 278
C. Beginning of the Congress. The Episode of the Organization
Committee 279
D. Dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy Group 283
E. The Equality of Languages Episode 284
F. The Agrarian Program 288
G. The Party Rules 293
H. Discussion on Centralism Prior to the Split Among the Iskra-
ite* 294
I. Paragraph One of the Rules 296
N. General Picture of the Struggle at the Congress. The Revolu-
tionary and Opportunist Wings of the Party 313
Q. The New Iskra. Opportunism in Questions of Organization 321
R. A Few Words on Dialectics. Two Revolutions .'144
THE PERIOD OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR AND THE FIRST
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
TWO TACTICS OF SOCIAL. DEMOCRACY IN THE DEMOCRATIC
REVOLUTION ......................... 351
Preface
1. An Urgent Political Question ................ 354
2. What Does the Resolution of the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
on a Provisional Revolutionary Government Teach Us? . . . 3f>7
3. What Is a "Decisive Victory of the Revolution Over Tsarism"? 362
4. The Abolition of the Monarchist System, and a Republic . . . 367
5. How Should "The Revolution Be Pushed Ahead"? ...... 372
6. From What Direction Is the Proletariat Threatened with the Dan-
ger of Having Its Hands Tied in the Struggle Against the Incon-
sistent Bourgeoisie? .................... 375
1. The Tactics of "Eliminating the Conservatives from the
Government" .......................
8. Osvobozhdeniye-ism and New 7*fcra-ism ...........
9. What Does Being a Party of Extreme Opposition in Time of
Revolution Mean? ..................... 396
10. "Revolutionary Communes" and Revolutionary-Democratic
Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry ...... 399
11. A Cursory Comparison Between Several of the Resolutions of
the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. and Those of the "Conference" 406
12. Will the Sweep of the Democratic Revolution Be Diminished If
the Bourgeoisie Recoils from it? .............. 410
13. Conclusion: Dare We Win? ................. 417
10 CONTENTS
POSTSCRIPT: Once Again Osvobozhdeniye-ism, Once Again New /a/t-m-ism 426
I. What Do the Boufgeois Liberal Realists Praise the Social-
Democrat "Realists" for? 426
II. Comrade Martynov Renders the Question "More Profound"
Again 4!i'2
III. The Vulgar Bourgeois Representation of Dictatorship and
„ Marx's View of It 4)17
NOTE TO CHAPTER 10 of Two Tactics 445
THE ATTITUDE OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY TONVARD 1 HH PEASANT
MOVEMENT 446
THE LESSONS OF THE MOSCOW UPRISING 4f>4
THE BOYCOTT • 460
THE LESSONS OF THE REVOLUTION 467
THE PERIOD OF THE STOLYPIN REACTION
THE BOLSHEVIKS CONSTITUTE THEMSELVES AN
INDEPENDENT MARXIST PARTY
POLITICAL NOTES 475
CERTAIN FEATURES OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
MARXISM 4«l
STOLYPIN AND THE REVOLUTION 4M
ON LIQUIDATORISM AND THE GROUP Ol LIQUIDATORS ... 494
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS: An Open Party and the Marxists . . . 4%
I. The Decision of 1908 4%
II. The Decision of 1910 499
III. The Attitude of the Liquidators to the Decisions of 1908 and 1910 502
IV. The Class Meaning of Liquidatorism 604
V. The Slogan of Struggle for an Open Party 507
VI ." 610
DISRUPTION OF UNITY UNDER COVER OF OUTCRIES FOR UNITY 614
I. "Factionalism" 514
II. The Split 51*
[ III. The Collapse of the August Bloc 521
IV. A Conciliator's Advice to the "Seven" 523
V. Trotsky's Liquidatorist Views 520
THE NEW RISE OF THE WORKING-CLASS
MOVEMENT BEFORE THE FIRST IMPERIALIST WAR
IN MEMORY OF HERTZEN 633
POLITICAL PARTIES IN RUSSIA 539
THE REVOLUTIONARY RISE 549
TWO UTOPIAS 55G
CONTENTS 11
BIG LANDLORD AND SMALL PEASANT LANDOVC'NCRSHiP IN
RUSSIA 560
BACKWARD EUROPE AND ADVANCED ASIA 562
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 564
I. What Is Self-Deter ruination of Nations? 564
II. The Concrete Historical Presentation of the Question 568
III. The Concrete Specific Features of the National Question in
Russia and Russia's Bourgeois -Democratic Reformation . . . 571
IV. "Practicalness'* in the National Question 575
V. The Liberal Bourgeoisie and the Socialist Opportunists on the
National Question 579
VI. The Secession of Norway from Sweden 587
VII. The Resolution of the London International Congress, 1896 . 591
VIII. Karl Marx the Utopian and Practical Rosa Luxemburg . . . 595
IX. The 1903 Program and Its Liquidators 601
X. Conclusion 008
OBJECTIVE DAT\ ON THE STRENGTH OF THE DIFFERENT
TRENDS IN THE WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT 612
THE PERIOD OF THE IMPERIALIST WAR
THE SECOND REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA
THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS AND THE WAR 619
THE NATIONAL PRIDE OF THE GREAT RUSSIANS 626
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE SLOGAN 630
OPPORTUNISM AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND INTERNA-
TIONAL 633
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM (A Popular
Outline) 643
Preface to the Russian Edition 643
Preface to the French and German Editions 645
I. Concentration of Production and Monopolies 650
II. The Banks and Their New Role 662
III. Finance Capital and Financial Oligarchy 676
IV. The Export of Capital 687
V. The Division of the World Among Capitalist Combines . . . 692
VI. The Division of the World Among the Great Powers 699
VII.- Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalism 708
VIII. The Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism f!7
IX. The Critique of Imperialism 72»
X. The Place of Imperialism in History 736
THE WAR PROGRAM OF THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION ... 741
LETTERS FROM AFAR: First Letter. The First Stage of the First
Revolution 751
PREFACE
la the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin the Soviet people
have a powerful weapon in their struggle for the honour, freedom and
independence of their Socialist country and in their struggle to build
a Communist society.
The History of the Commwnist Party of 1)u>. Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),
Short Course, served as a mighty impetus in the ideological and political
life of the Party and the Soviet people. It placed the study of the founda-
tion of Marxism-Leninism and the mastery of Bolshevism on a new and
higher footing. It is stimulating the broad masses, in particular the Soviet
intellectuals, to independent and deeper study of the great works of Marx,
Engels, Lenin and Stalin. The interest in the writings of the founders
of Marxism- Leninism has grown tremendously since the appearance of this
history.
The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people which culminated in
Aictory over Germany and Japan was a new and splendid confir-
mation of the invincible might of tbe Sovet system and the profound
historical justne>s of its advanced and progressive ide:>log\ . Lenin's
writings arm our people with a knowledge of the laws of social
development and teach them to understand tbe complex phenomena in
the life of society. The revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism
"gives practical workers the power of orientation, clarity of perspective,
confidence in their work, faith in the victory of our cause" (Stalin).
The two-volume edition of Lenin's selected works includes the fol-
lowing important writings: "What the 'Friends of the People' Are and
How They Fight the Social-Democrats," "The Tasks of the Russian
Social-Democrats," "What Is To Be Done?" "One Step Forward, Two
Steps Back," "Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic
Revolution," "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism," "The
United States of Europe Slogan," "The War Program of the Proletarian
Revolution," "The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution"
(the April Theses), "The Impending Catastrophe and How To Combat It,"
"The State and Revolution," "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet
Government," "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky,"
"'Left- wing* Communism, An Infantile Disorder," "The Tax in Kind,"
13
14 PREFACE
"On Co-operation,"* and others. Each of these works constitutes a land-
mark in the history of the Party of Lenin and Stalin and in the develop-
ment of the Marxist-Leninist theory. In addition, the present two- volume
edition includes Lenin's most important articles on the defence of the
Socialist fatherland, of tremendous importance in the mobilization and
organization of the Soviet people.
In his'book "What the 'Friends of the People' Are and How They Fight
the Social-Democrats" (1894), Lenin thoroughly exposed the true charac-
ter of the Narodniks, showing that they were false "friends^of the people"
and actually working against the people. He showed that it was the Marx-
ists and not the Narodniks who were the real friends of the people, and
who sincerely wanted to destroy tsarism and rid the people of oppression
of all kind. For the first time Lenin advanced the idea of a revolutionary
alliance of the workers and the peasants as the principal means of over-
throwing tsardom, the landlords and the bourgeoisie, and outlined the
main tasks of the Russian Marxists. In this work he pointed out that it
would be the working class of Russia in alliance with the peasantry that
would overthrow tsarism, after which the Russian proletariat in alliance
with the labouring masses would achieve a free life in which there would
be no room for the exploitation of man by man,
In "What Is To Be Done?" (1902) Lenin outlined a concrete organi-
zational plan for the structure of a Marxist Party of the working class.
He completely demolished the theory of "Economism," exposed the ideol-
ogy of opportunism, and the practice of lagging behind events and allow-
ing them to take their own course. He stressed the importance of theory,
of political consciousness, and of the Party as the guiding force of
the working-class movement. He substantiated the thesis that a Marxist
Party is a union of the working-class movement with Socialism and
gave a brilliant exposition of the ideological foundations of a Marxist
Party.
In his famous book "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back7' (1904),
Lenin successfully upheld the Party principle against the circle principle,
and the Party against theMenshevik disorganizers, smashed the opportun-
ism of the Mensheviks on questions of organization and laid the organi-
zational foundations of the Bolshevik Party — the militant revolutionary
Party of the new type. In this book Lenin, "for the first time in the
history of Marxism, elaborated the doctrine of the Party as the leading
organization of the proletariat, as the principal weapon of the
proletariat, without which the struggle for the dictatorship of the prole-
tariat cannot be won." (History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
[Bolsheviks], page 51.) "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back" makes
clear the importance of organization and discipline.
* Lenin's books The\ Development of Capitalism in Russia and Materialism
and Empirio- Criticism have been published as separate works.
PREFACE 15
In his historic book, "Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Demo-
cratic Revolution" (1905) Lenin gave a withering criticism of the petty-
bourgeois tactical line of the Mensheviks and brilliantly substantiated
the Bolshevik tactics in the bourgeois-democratic revolution and in the
period of transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the
Socialist revolution. The fundamental tactical principle of this book is
the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic
revolution, the idea that the hegemony of the proletariat in the bour-
geois revolution, the proletariat being in alliance with the peasantry>
would grow into the hegemony of the proletariat in the Socialist revolu-
tion, the proletariat being in alliance with the other labouring and exploit-
ed masses.
"This was a new line in the question of the relation between the bour-
geois revolution and the Socialist revolution, a new theory of the regroup-
ing of forces around the proletariat, towards the end of the bourgeois
revolution, for a direct transition to the Socialist revolution — the theory of
the bourgeois-democratic revolution passing into the Socialist revolution."
(History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [Bolsheviks], p. 75.)
This book already contains the fundamental elements of Lenin's
theory that it is possible for Socialism to be victorious in one country,
taken singly. Its invaluable significance is that it enriched Marxism with
a new theory of revolution and laid the foundation for the revolutionary
tactics of the Bolshevik Party with the help of which the proletariat of
our country achieved its victory over capitalism in 1917.
In his work "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" (1916)
Lenin makes a Marxist analysis of imperialism, showing that it is the
highest and last stage of capitalism, that it is decaying and moribund cap-
italism, and at the same time the eve of the Socialist revolution. On the
basis of data on imperialist capitalism, Lenin set forth a new theory
according to which the simultaneous victory of Socialism in all countries
is impossible, whereas the victory of Socialism in one capitalist country,
taken singly, is possible. Lenin formulates this brilliant deduction in
his article "The United States of Europe Slogan" (1915) and in his "The
War Program of the Proletarian Revolution" (1916).
"This was a new and complete theory of the Socialist revolution, a
theory affirming the possibility of the victory of Socialism in separate
countries, and indicating the conditions of this victory and its prospects...."
(History of the Communist Party of ike Soviet Union [Bolsheviks], p. 169.)
Lenin's April Theses laid down for the Bolshevik Party a brilliant
plan of struggle for the transition from the bourgeois-democratic
revolution to the Socialist revolution.
In his work "The Impending Catastrophe and How To Combat It"
(1917) Lenin warned the working people of Russia of the danger of German
imperialism enslaving our country if the people did not take power into
their own hands and save the country from ruin, Lenin showed that
16 PREFACE
"it is impossible in Russia to advance without advancing towards So-
cialism/' that an implacable war had placed before our country with
ruthless acuteness the question of "cither perish, or overtake and out-
strip the advanced countries economically as w el Z." The
salvation of our country from destruction, the strengthening of its
defence capacity and the building of Socialism are all closely and indis-
solubly Interconnected, wrote Lenin. Socialism would transform Russia
economically and create a material base for the mass heroism of the
people, without which it would be impossible to make our country
capable of defending itself.
In his book "The State and Revolution" (1917) Lenin laid bare the
bourgeois essence of the views of the opportunists (Kautsky and others)
and the anarchists on the question of the state and the revolution. In this
work Lenin expounds and develops the Marxist theory on the state, the
proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, on Social-
ism and Communism. Basing himself on a study of the experience of the
two revolutions in Russia, Lenin set forth the theory of a Republic of
Soviets as the political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In his work "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government" (1918)
Lenin dealt with the main problems of Socialist construction, accounting
and control in public economy, the establishment of new, Socialist rela-
tions of production, the tightening of labour discipline, the development
of Socialist competition, the reinforcement and development of the dicta-
torship of the proletariat, the alliance of the working class and the peas-
antry, and the development of proletarian democracy.
In his works written during the period of foreign military intervention
and the Civil War, Lenin gave classical formulations of the tasks of the
people, of the front and rear, in conditions of war.
Lenin demanded of the Soviet men and women in time of war heroism,
courage, valour, fearlessness in battle and readiness to fight together with
the people against the enemies of our country. It is the task of the rear,
he wrote, to convert the country into a united military camp and to
work in revolutionary fashion, smoothly and efficiently, under the slo-
gan of "All for the Front." "Since the war has proved unavoidable, every-
thing for the war, and the slightest laxity or lack of energy must be
punished in conformity with wartime laws." Lenin demanded of the
front relentlessness towards the enemy and the consolidation of all
victories that had been won for the complete smashing of the enemy.
"The men, commanders and political instructors of the Red Army," says
Comrade Stalin, "must firmly bear in mind the behests of our teacher
Lenin: 'The first thing is not to be carried away by victory, not to grow
conceited; the second thing is to consolidate the victory; the third thing
is to crush the opponent.'"
In his works Lenin has given us a profound analysis of the factors
making for the invincibility of the Soviet people and the vitality and
PREFACE 17
indestructibility of the Soviet state. "No one will ever conquer a people
whose workers and peasants have in their majority realized, felt and
seen that they are defending their own Soviet government, the govern-
ment of the toilers, that they are defending a cause whose victory will
ensure them and their children the opportunity to take advantage of all
the blessings of culture, all the creations of man's labour."
In his article "On Co-operation" and in subsequent articles Lenin re-
viewed the work of the Party and the Soviet government and outlined a
plan for the building of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. by means of indus-
trializing the country and drawing the peasants into Socialist construction
through co-operatives.
The works of Lenin in this two-volume edition of his selected works
show the main stages in the historic development of Bolshevism, show
Marxism-Leninism in action.
Seven articles by Stalin serve as an introduction to Lenin's writings.
In them Stalin gives an unusually powerful and vivid picture of Lenin
as one of the greatest geniuses of mankind, the leader of the Bolshevik
Party and the working class, a fearless revolutionary, organizer of the
Great October Socialist Revolution, builder of the first Socialist state
in the world and of the new, Socialist society. Lenin is "a leader of the
highest rank, a mountain eagle, who knew no fear in the struggle and
who boldly led the Party forward along the unexplored paths of the
Russian revolutionary movement." (Stalin.)
Stalin describes Lenin as the great patriot of our country, a brilliant
strategist and organizer of the defence of the Socialist fatherland against
foreign invaders.
All the works included in these two volumes are given in full with the
exception of "What the 'Friends of the People* Are and How They Fight
the Social-Democrats," of which only the first part is given.
In the main the material in these volumes is arranged in chronological
order, the exception being the first group of articles, which deal with
Marx and Marxism. The contents have been divided into historical periods,
as given in The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
{Bolsheviks). The first volume contains Lenin's writings in the period
1894 to March 1917, while the second volume — as from April 1917 to
March 1923.
The second and third editions of Lenin's Collected Works have been
used throughout as the sources of the material printed here except for
"What the 'Friends of the People' Are and How They Fight the Social-
Democrats" and the "The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats," taken
from the fourth edition, the articles written in 1917, taken from the three-
volume edition of Lenin, Collected Works of 1917, the "Letter to the Tula
Comrades," from the Lenin Miscellany, Vol. XXXIV; the appeal "The
Socialist Fatherland Is in Dangerl" from the book: V. I. Lenin, From
the Civil War Period, the telegram "To All Provincial and Uyezd Soviet
2-686
18 PREFACE
Deputies," from the text published in Pravda, No. 54, February 23,
1942, the appeal "Beware of Spies I" from the text published in Pravda,
No. 116, May 31, 1919; the letter of the Central Committee of the Russian
Communist Party (Bolsheviks) "All Out for the Fight against Denikin!"
from the separate pamphlet published in 1933.
In addition to the date of writing and publication, the articles in this
collection are accompanied by brief explanatory notes. Lenin's notes are
given without comment. Notes by the editors of this two-volume edition
are signed "EdS* The dates in the text and in Lenin's notes conform
with the style of calendar used by Lenin.
Lenin's Two-Volume Edition of Selected Works is an indispensible
reference book for everyone who is studying The History of the Com-
munist Party of the Sovie* Union (Bolsheviks) and the foundations of
Marxism -Leninism .
MARX-ENGELS-LENIN INSTITUTE
STALIN
LENIN
and
LENINISM
Remember, Io\e and study Lenin, our
teacher and leader.
Fight and \anquish the enemies, internal
and foreign-— a* Lenin taimht 11*.
UuiJd the now life, the new exNh'nce, the
new culture — as I eiiin taught \\*.
Never refuse to do the little Ihiusx, for from
little thingx JUT Iwilt the !»!<» things — this is
one of Lenin V import ani Behests.
J. STALIX
- . a Gazeta"
occasion of the first anniversary of Lenin's death.
ON THE DEATH OF LENIN
A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE SECOND ALL-UNION CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
JANUARY 26, 1924
Comrades, we Communists are people of a special mould. We are made
of a special stuff. We are those who form the army of the great proletar-
ian strategist, the army of Comrade Lenin. There is nothing higher than
the honour of belonging to this army. There is nothing higher than the
title of member of the Party whose founder and leader was Comrade Lenin.
It is not given to everyone to be a member of such a party. It is not given
to everyone to withstand the stresses and storms that accompany member-
ship in such a party. It is the sons of the working class, the sons of want
and struggle, the sons of incredible privation and heroic effort who before
all should be members of such a party. That is why the Party of the
Leninists, the Party of the Communists, is also called the Party of the
working class.
Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to hold high and
guard the purity of the great title of member of the Party. We vow
to you, Comrade Lenin, that we will fulfil your behest with credit!
For twenty- five years Comrade Lenin moulded our Party and finally
trained it to be the strongest and most highly steeled workers' party in
the world. The blows of tsardom and its henchmen, the fury of the bour-
geoisie and the landlords, the armed attacks of Kolchak and Denikin,
the armed intervention of England and France, the lies and slanders
of the hundred- mouthed bourgeois press — all these scorpions constantly
chastised our Party for a quarter of a century. But our Party stood firm
as a rock, repelling the countless blows of the enemy and leading the
working class forward, to victory. In fierce battle our Party forged the
unity and solidarity of its ranks. And by unity and solidarity it achieved
victory over the enemies of the working class.
Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to guard the
unity of our Party as the apple of our eye. We, vow to you, Comrade
Lenin, that this behest, too, we will fulfil with credit!
21
22 J. V. STALIN
Burdensome and intolerable has been the lot of the working class.
Painful and grievous have been the sufferings of the labouring people.
Slaves and slaveholders, serfs and sires, peasants and landlords, workers
and capitalists, oppressed and oppressors — so the world has been built
from time immemorial, and so it remains to this day in the vast majori-
ty of countries. Scores, nay, hundreds of times in the course of the centu-
ries have the labouring people striven to throw off the oppressors from their
backs an3 to become the masters of their own destiny. But each time,
defeated and disgraced, they have been forced to retreat, harboring in
their breasts resentment and humiliation, anger and despair, and lifting
up their eyes to an inscrutable heaven where they hoped to find deliver-
ance. The chains of slavery remained intact, or the old chains were re-
placed by new ones, equally burdensome and degrading. Ours is the only
country where the crushed and oppressed labouring masses have succeeded
in throwing off the rule of the landlords and capitalists and replacing
it by the rule of the workers and peasants. You know, comrades, and the
whole world now admits it, that this gigantic struggle was led by Com-
rade Lenin and his Party. The greatness of Lenin lies before all in this,
that by creating the Republic of Soviets he gave a practical demonstra-
tion to the oppressed masses of the world that hope of deliverance is not
lost, that the rule of the landlords and capitalists is short-lived, that the
kingdom of labour can be created by the efforts of the labouring people
themselves, and ttiat the kingdom of labour must be created not in heaven,
but on earth. He thus fired the hearts of the workers and peasants of the
whole world with the hope of liberation. This explains why Lenin's name
has become the name most beloved of the labouring and exploited masses.
Departing from, us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to guard and
strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. We vow to you,
Comrade Lenin, that we will spare no effort to fulfil this behest,
too, with credit!
The dictatorship of the proletariat was established in our country
on the basis of an alliance between the workers and peasants. This is the
prime and fundamental basis of the Republic of Soviets. The workers
and peasants could not have vanquished the capitalists and landlords
without such an alliance. The workers could not have defeated the capi-
talists without the support of the peasants. The peasants could not have
defeated the landlords without the leadership of the workers. This is
borne out by the whole history of the civil war in our country. But the
struggle to consolidate the Soviet Republic is by no means at an end — it
has only taken on a new form. Before, the alliance of the workers and
peasants took the form of a military alliance, because it was directed
against Kolchak and Denikin. Now, the alliance of the workers and peasants
must assume the form of economic co-operation between town and country,
ON THE DEATH OF LENIN 23
between workers and peasants, because it is directed against the merchant
and the kulak, and its aim is the mutual supply by peasants and workers
of all they require. You know that nobody worked for this more persist-
ently than Comrade Lenin.
Departing from us, Comrade, Lenin adjured us to strengthen
with all our might the alliance of the workers and the peasants. We
vow to you, Comrade Lenin, that this behest, too9 we will fulfil
with credit!
A second basis of the Republic of Soviets is the alliance of the labour-
ing nationalities of our country. Russians and Ukrainians, Bashkirs
and Byelorussians, Georgians and Azerbaijanians, Armenians and Da-
ghestanians, Tatars and Kirghiz, Uzbeks and Turkmans are all equally
interested in strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat. Not only
does the dictatorship of the proletariat deliver these nations from chains
and oppression, but these nations for their part deliver our Soviet Re-
public from the intrigues and assaults of the enemies of the working class
by their supreme devotion to the Soviet Republic and their readiness
to make sacrifices for it. That is why Comrade Lenin untiringly urged
upon us the necessity of maintaining the voluntary union of the nations
of our country, the necessity for fraternal co-operation between them
within the framework of the Union of Republics.
Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjuitd us to consolidate
and extend the Union of Republics. We vow to you, Comrade Lenin,
that this behest> too, we will fulfil with credit!
A third basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat is our Red Army
and Red Navy. More than once did Lenin impress upon us that the res-
pite we had won from the capitalist states might prove a short one. Moie
than once did Lenin point out to us that the strengthening of the Red Army
and the improvement of its condition is one of the most important tasks
of our Party. The events connected with Curzon's ultimatum and the cri-
sis in Germany once more confirmed that, as always, Lenin was right.
Let us vow then, comrades, that we will spare no effort to strengthen
our Red Army and our Red Navy.
Like a vast rock, our country towers amid an ocean of bourgeois states.
Wave after wave dashes against it, threatening to submerge it and crumble
it to pieces. But the rock stands solid and firm. Where lies its strength?
Not only in the fact that our country rests on an alliance of workers
and peasants, that it embodies an alliance of free nationalities, that it
is protected by the strong arm of the Red Army and the Red Navy. The
strength, the firmness, the solidity of our country is due to the profound
sympathy and unfailing support it finds in the hearts of the workers and
24 J. y. STALIN
peasants of the whole world. The workers and peasants of the whole world
want the Soviet Republic to be preserved, as a bolt shot by the sure hand
of Comrade Lenin into the camp of the enemy, as the pillar of their hopes
of deliverance from oppression and exploitation, as a reliable beacon
pointing the path to their emancipation. They want to preserve it, and they
will not allow the landlords and capitalists to destroy it. Therein lies
our strength. Therein lies the strength of the working people of all countries.
And therein lies the weakness of the bourgeoisie all over the world.
Lenin never regarded the Republic of Soviets as an end in itself.
To him it was always a link needed to strengthen the chain of the revo-
lutionary movement in the countries of the West and the East, a link
needed to facilitate the victory of the working people of the whole world
over capitalism. Lenin knew that this was the only right conception,
both from the international standpoint and from the standpoint of
preserving the Soviet Republic itself. Lenin knew that this alone could
fire the working people of the world to fight the decisive battles for their
emancipation. That is why, on the very morrow of the establishment of
the dictatorship of the proletariat, this most brilliant of all leaders of the
proletariat laid the foundation of the workers' International. That is
why he never tired of extending and strengthening the union of the work-
ing people of the whole world — the Communist International.
You have seen during the past few days the pilgrimage of scores and
hundreds of thousands of working folk to the bier of Comrade Lenin. Soon
you will see the pilgrimage of representatives of millions of working
people to the tomb of Comrade Lenin. You need not doubt that the rep-
resentatives of millions will be followed by representatives of scores and
hundreds of millions from all parts of the earth, come to testify that
Lenin was the leader not only of the Russian proletariat, not only of the
European workers, not only of the colonial East, but of all the working
people of the globe.
Departing from us, Comrade Lenin adjured us to remain faith"
ful to the principles of the Communist International. We vow to
you, Comrade Lenin, that' we will not spare our lives to strengthen
and extend the union of the toilers of the whole world — the
Communist International!
Pravda No. 23,
January 30, 1924
LENIN AS THE ORGANIZER AND LEADER
OF THE RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY
WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF LENIN'S FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY
There are two groups of Marxists. Both work under the flag of Marx-
ism and consider themselves "genuine" Marxists. Nevertheless, they
are by no means identical. More, a veritable gulf divides them, for their
methods of work are diametrically opposed to each other.
The first group usually confines itself to an outward acceptance, to
a ceremonial avowal of Marxism. Being unable or unwilling to grasp
the essence of Marxism, being unable or unwilling to translate it into
reality, it converts the living and revolutionary principles of Marxism
into lifeless and meaningless formulas. It does not base its activities on
experience, on what practical work teaches, but on quotations from Marx.
It does not derive its instructions and directions from an analysis of
actual realities, but from analogies and historical parallels. Discrepancy
between word and deed is the chief malady of this group. Hence that
disillusionment and perpetual grudge against fate which time and again
betrays it and leaves it "with its nose out of joint." This group is known
as the Mensheviks (in Russia), or opportunists (in Europe). Comrade
Tyszka (Yogisches) described this group very aptly at the London
Congress when he said that it does not stand by, but lies down on the
Marxist view.
The second group, on the other hand, attaches prime importance not
to the outward acceptance of Marxism, but to its realization, its transla-
tion into reality. What this group chiefly concentrates its attention on
is to determine the ways and means of realizing Marxism that best an-
swer the situation, and to change these ways and means as the situation
changes. It does not derive its directions and instructions from histori-
cal analogies and parallels, but from a study of surrounding conditions.
It does not base its activities on quotations and maxims, but on practi-
cal experience, testing every step by experience, learning from its mis-
takes and teaching others how to build a new life. This, in fact, explains
why there is no discrepancy between word and deed in the activities of
this group, and why the teachings of Marx completely retain their living,
J. V. STALIN
revolutionary force. To this group may be fully applied Marx's saying
that Marxists cannot rest content with interpreting the world, but must
go farther and change it. This group is known as the Bolsheviks, the
Communists.
The organizer and leader of this group is V. I. Lenin.
LENIN AS THE ORGANIZER OF THE RUSSIAN
COMMUNIST PARTY
The formation of the proletarian party in Russia took place under
special conditions, conditions differing from those prevailing in the
West at the time the workers' parties were formed there. Whereas in the
West, in France and in Germany, the workers' party emerged from the
trade unions at a time when trade unions and parties were legal, when the
bourgeois revolution had already been made, when bourgeois parliaments
existed, when the bourgeoisie, having climbed into power, found itself
face to face with the proletariat, in Russia, on the contrary, the formation
of the proletarian party took place under a most ferocious absolutism,
in expectation of a bourgeois-democratic revolution; at a time when, on
the one hand, the Party organizations were filled to overflowing with
bourgeois "legal Marxists "who were thirsting to utilize the working class
for the bourgeois revolution, and when, on the other, the tsarist gendarm-
erie were robbing the Party's ranks of its best workers, while the growth
of a spontaneous revolutionary movement called for the existence of a
steadfast, compact and sufficiently secret fighting core of revolutionaries,
capable of leading the movement for the overthrow of absolutism.
The task was to separate the sheep from the goats, to dissociate one-
self from alien elements, to organize cadres of experienced revolutionaries
in the localities, to provide them with a clear program and firm tactics,
and, lastly, to form these cadres into a single, militant organization of
professional revolutionaries, sufficiently secret to withstand the on-
slaughts of the gendarmes, and at the same time sufficiently connected
with the masses to lead them into battle at the required moment.
The Mensheviks, the people who "lie down" on the Marxist view,
settled the question very simply: inasmuch as the workers' party in the
West had emerged from non-party trade unions fighting for the improve-
ment of the economic conditions of the working class, the same, as far
as possible, should be the case in Russia; that is, the "economic struggle
of the workers against the employers and the government" in the various
localities was enough for the time being, no all- Russian militant organ-
ization should be created, and later . . . well, later, if trade unions
LENIN AS ORGANIZER AND LEADER OF R.C.P. 27
did not arise by that time, a non-party labour congress should be called
and proclaimed the party.
That this "Marxist" "plan" of the Mensheviks, Utopian though it was
under Russian conditions, would entail extensive agitational work de-
signed to disparage the very idea of party, to destroy the Party cadres,
to leave the proletariat without a party and to surrender the working class
to the tender mercies of the liberals, the Mensheviks, and perhaps a good
many Bolsheviks too, hardly suspected at the time.
It was an immense service that Lenin rendered the Russian proletariat
and its Party by exposing the utter danger of the Mensheviks' "plan"
of organization at a time when this "plan" was still in the germ, when
even its authors perceived its outlines with difficulty, and, having ex-
posed it, opening a furious attack on the license of the Mensheviks in mat-
ters of organization and concentrating the whole attention of the militants
on this question. For the very existence of the Party was at stake; it was
a matter of life or death for the Party.
The plan that Lenin developed in his famous books, What Is To Be
D>ne? and One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, was to establish an all-
Russian political newspaper as a rallying centre of Party forces, to or-
ganize staunch Party cadres in the localities as "regular units" of the
Party, to gather these cadres into one entity through the medium of the
newspaper, and to unite them into an all- Russian militant party with
sharply-defined limits, with a clear program, firm tactics and a single
will. The merit of this plan lay in the fact that it fully conformed to
Russian realities, and that it generalized in a masterly fashion the organ-
izational experience of the best of the militants. In the struggle for this
plan, the majority of the Russian militants resolutely sided with Lenin
and did not shrink from the prospect of a split. The victory of this plan
laid the foundation for that closely-welded and steeled Communist Party
of which there is no equal in the world.
Our comrades (and not only the Mensheviks!) often accused Lenin of
an extreme fondness for controversy and splits, of being relentless in his
struggle against conciliators and so on. At times this was undoubtedly
the case. But it will be easily understood that our Party could not have
rid itself of internal weakness and diffuseness, that it could not have at-
tained its characteristic vigour and strength if it had not expelled non-pro-
letarian, opportunist elements from its midst. In the epoch of bourgeois
rule, a proletarian party can grow and gain strength only to the extent
that it combats the opportunist, anti-revolutionary and anti-Party elements
in its own midst and within the working class. Lassalle was right when
he said: "A party becomes stronger by purging itself." The accusers usu-
ally cited the German party, where "unity" at that time flourished. But,
in the first place, not every kind of unity is a sign of strength, and secondly,
one has only to glance at the late German party, now rent into three par-
ties, to realize the utter falsity and fictitiousncss of "unity" between
28 J. V. STALIN
Scheidemann and Noske, on the one hand, and Liebknecht and Luxem-
burg, on the other. And who knows whether it would not have been bet-
ter for the German proletariat if the revolutionary elements of the Ger-
man party had split away from its anti-revolutionary elements in time. . * .
No, Lenin was a thousand times right in leading the Party along the path
of irreconcilable struggle against the anti-Party and anti-revolutionary
elements., For it was only because of such a policy of organization that
our Party was able to create that internal unity and astonishing cohesion
which enabled it to emerge unscathed from the July crisis during the
Kerensky regime, to bear the brunt of the October uprising, to pass
through the crisis of the Brest-Litovsk period unshaken, to organize the
victory over the Entente, and, lastly, to acquire that unparalleled flexi-
bility which permits it at any moment to reform its ranks and to concentrate
hundreds of thousands of its members on any big task without causing
confusion in its midst.
LENIN AS THE LEADER OF THE RUSSIAN
COMMUNIST PARTY
But the merits of the Russian Communist Party in the field of organi-
zation are only one aspect of the matter. The Party could not have gro\vn
and fortified itself so quickly if the political content of its work, its program
and tactics had not conformed to Russian realities, if its slogans had not
fired the worker masses and had not impelled the revolutionary move-
ment forward. We shall now deal with this aspect.
The Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution (1905) took place under
conditions differing from those that prevailed during the revolutionary
upheavals in the West, in France and Germany, for example. Whereas
the revolution in the West took place in the period of manufacture and
of an undeveloped class struggle, when the proletariat was weak and
numerically small and did not have its own party to formulate its demands,
and when the bourgeoisie was sufficiently revolutionary to win the con-
fidence of the workers and peasants and to lead them in the struggle
against the aristocracy, in Russia, on the other hand, the revolution
began (1905) in the period of machine industry and of a developed class
struggle, when the Russian proletariat, relatively numerous and welded
together by capitalism, had already fought a number of battles with the
bourgeoisie, had its own party, which was more united than the bour»
geois party, and its own class demands, and when the Russian bourgeoisie,
which, moreover, subsisted on government contracts, was sufficiently
scared by the revolutionary temper of the proletariat to seek an alliance
with the government and the landlords against the workers and peasants.
LENIN AS ORGANIZER AND LEADER OF R.C.P. 29
The fact that the Russian revolution broke out as a result of the military
defeats suffered on the fields of Manchuria only accelerated events with-
out essentially altering them.
The situation demanded that the proletariat should take the lead
of the revolution, rally the revolutionary peasants and wage a deter-
mined fight against tsardom and the bourgeoisie simultaneously, with a
view to establishing complete democracy in the country and ensuring
its own class interests.
But theMensheviks, the people who "lie down" on the Marxist view,
settled the question in their own fashion: inasmuch as the Russian revolu-
tion was a bourgeois revolution, and inasmuch as it was the representa-
tives of the bourgeoisie that lead bourgeois revolutions (see the "history"
of the French and German revolutions), the proletariat could not exer-
cise the hegemony in the Russian revolution, the leadership should be
left to the Russian bourgeoisie (which was betraying the revolution);
the peasantry should also be left under the tutelage of the bourgeoisie,
while the proletariat should remain an extreme Left opposition.
And this vulgar rehash of the tunes of the wretched liberals the
Mensheviks passed off as the last word in "genuine" Marxism!
It was an immense service that Lenin rendered the Russian revolution
by utterly exposing the futility of the Mensheviks' historical parallels and
the danger of the Menshevik "scheme of revolution" which would surren-
der the cause of the workers to the tender mercies of the bourgeoisie. The
tactical plan which Lenin developed in his famous pamphlets, Two Tactics
and The Victory of the Cadets , was as follows: a revolutionary- democratic
dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, instead of the dictatorship
of the bourgeoisie; boycott of the Bulygin Duma and armed uprising,
instead of participating in the Duma and carrying on organic work
within it; the idea of a "Left bloc," when the Duma was after all con-
vened, and the utilization of the Duma tribune for the struggle waged
outside the Duma, instead of a Cadet Ministry and the reactionary
"cherishing" of the Duma; a fight against the Cadet Party as a counter-
revolutionary force, instead of forming a "bloc" with it.
The merit of this plan was that it bluntly and decisively formulated the
class demands of the proletariat in the epoch of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution in Russia, facilitated the transition to the Socialist revolution,
and bore within itself the germ of the idea of the dictatorship of the pro-
letariat. The majority of the Russian militants resolutely and unswervingly
followed Lenin in the struggle for this tactical plan. The victory of this
plan laid the foundation for those revolutionary tactics with whose help
our Party is now shaking the foundations of world imperialism.
The subsequent development of events : the four years of imperialist war
and the shattering of the whole economic life of the country; the February
Revolution and the celebrated dual power; the Provisional Government,
which was a hotbed of bourgeois counter-revolution, and the Petrograd
30 J.V. STALIN
Soviet, which was the form of the incipient proletarian dictatorship; the
October Revolution and the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly; the
abolition of bourgeois parliamentarism and the proclamation of the Repub-
lic of Soviets; the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war and
the offensive of world imperialism, in conjunction with the pseudo-Marx-
ists, against the proletarian revolution; and, lastly, the pitiable position
of the Mgnsheviks, who clung to the Constituent Assembly and who were
thrown overboard by the proletariat and driven by the waves of revolution
to the shores of capitalism — all this only confirmed the correctness of
the principles of the revolutionary tactics formulated by Lenin in his
Two Tactics. A Party with such a heritage could sail boldly forward, fear*
less of submerged rocks.
In these days of proletarian revolution, when every Party slogan and
every utterance of a leader is tested in action, the proletariat makes spe-
cial demands of its leaders. History knows of proletarian leaders who were
leaders in times of storm, practical leaders, self-sacrificing and courageous,
but who were weak in theory. The names of such leaders are not soon forgot-
ten by the masses. Such, for example, were Lassalle in Germany and Blan-
qui in France. But the movement as a whole cannot live on reminiscences
alone: it must have a clear goal (a program), and a firm line (tactics).
There is another type of leader — peace-time leaders, who are strong in
theory, but weak in questions of organization and practical affairs. Such
leaders are popular only among an upper layer of the proletariat, and then
only up to a certain point; when times of revolution set in, when practical
revolutionary slogans are demanded of the leaders, the theoreticians quit
the stage and give way to new men. Such, for example, were Plekhanov in
Russia and Kautsky in Germany.
To retain the post of leader of the proletarian revolution and of the pro-
letarian party, one must combine strength of theory with experience in the
practical organization of the proletarian movement. P. Axelrod, when he
was a Marxist, wrote of Lenin that he "happily combines the experience of
a good practical worker, a theoretical education and a broad political out-
look" (see P. Axelrod *s preface to Lenin's pamphlet: The Tasks of the Rus-
sian Social- Democrats'). What Mr. Axelrod, the ideologist of "civilized"
capitalism, would say now about Lenin, is not difficult to guess. But we who
know Lenin well and can judge dispassionately have no doubt that Lenin
has fully retained this old quality. It is here, incidentally, that one must
seek the reason why it is Lenin, and no. one else, who is today the leader of
the strongest and most highly tempered proletarian party in the world.
Pravda No. 86,
April 23, 1920
LENIN
SPEECH DELIVERED AT A MEMORIAL MEETING
OF THE KREMLIN MILITARY SCHOOL
JANUARY 28, 1924
Comrades, I am told that you have arranged a Lenin memorial meeting
this evening, and that I have been invited as one of the speakers. I believe
there is no need for me to deliver a set speech on Lenin's activities. It would
be better, I think, to confine myself to a few facts to bring out certain of
Lenin's characteristics as a man and a statesman. There may perhaps be no
inherent connection between these facts, but that is of no vital importance
as far as gaining a general idea of Lenin is concerned. At any rate, I am un-
able on this occasion to do more than what I have just promised.
A MOUNTAIN EAGLE
I first became acquainted with Lenin in 1903. True, it was not a personal
acquaintance; it was maintained by correspondence. But it made an indeli-
ble impression upon me, one which has never left me throughout all my
work in the Party. I was in exile in Siberia at the time. My knowledge of
Lenin's revolutionary activities since the end of the 'nineties, and especial-
ly after 1901, after the appearance of Iskra, had convinced me that in
Lenin we had a man of extraordinary calibre. I did not regard him as a mere
leader of the Party, but as its actual founder, for he alone understood the
inner essence and urgent needs of our Party. When I compared him with
the other leaders of our Party, it always seemed to me that he was head and
shoulders above his colleagues — Plekhanov, Martov, Axelrod and the
others; that, compared with them, Lenin was not just one of the leaders,
but a leader of the highest rank, a mountain eagle, who knew no fear in the
struggle and who boldly led the Party forward along the unexplored paths
of the Russian revolutionary movement. This impression took such a deep
hold of me that I felt impelled to write about it to a close friend of mine who
was living as a political exile abroad, requesting him to give me his optn-
31
32 J- V. STALIN
ion. Some time later, when I was already in exile in Siberia — this was at
the end of 1903 — I received an enthusiastic letter from my friend and a
simple, but profoundly expressive letter from Lenin, to whom, it appeared,
my friend had shown my letter. Lenin's note was comparatively short, but
it contained a bold and fearless criticism of the practical work of our Party,
and a remarkably clear and concise account of the entire plan of work of the
Party in the immediate future. Only Lenin could write of the most intric-
ate things so simply and clearly, so concisely and boldly that every sen-
tence did not so much speak as ring like a rifle shot. This simple and bold
letter strengthened my opinion that Lenin was the mountain eagle of our
Party. I cannot forgive myself for having, from the habit of an old under-
ground worker, consigned this letter of Lenin's, like many other letters, to
the flames.
My acquaintance with Lenin dates from that time.
MODESTY
I first met Lenin in December 1905 at the Bolshevik conference in
Tammerfors (Finland). I was hoping to see the mountain eagle of our Party,
the great man, great not only politically, but, if you will, physically, be-
cause in my imagination I pictured Lenin as a giant, stately and imposing.
What, then, was my disappointment to see a most ordinary- looking man,
below average height, in no way, literally in no way, distinguishable from
ordinary mortals. . . .
It is accepted as the usual thing for a "great man" to come late to meet-
ings so that the assembly may await his appearance with bated breath; and
then, just before the great man enters, the warning whisper goes up:
"Hush! . . . Silence! . . . He's coming." This rite did not seem to me
superfluous, because it creates an impression, inspires respect. What,
then, was my disappointment to learn that Lenin had arrived at the
conference before the delegates, h^d settled himself somewhere in a corner,
and was unassumingly carrying on a conversation, a most ordinary con-
versation with the most ordinary delegates at the conference. I will not
conceal from you that at that time this seemed to me to be rather a viola-
tion of certain essential rules.
Only later did I realize that this simplicity and modesty, this striving
to remain unobserved, or, at least, not to make himself conspicuous and not
to emphasize his high position — that this feature was one of Lenin's strong-
est points as the new leader of the new masses, of the simple and ordinary
masses, of the very "rank and file" of humanity.
LENIN
FORCE OF LOGIC
The two speeches Lenin delivered at this conference were remarkable:
one was on the political situation and the other on the agrarian question.
Unfortunately, they have not been preserved. They were inspired, and they
roused the whole conference to a pitch of stormy enthusiasm. The extraor-
dinary power of conviction, the simplicity and clarity of argument, the
brief and easily understandable sentences, the absence of affectation,
of dizzy ing gestures and theatrical phrases aiming for effect — all this made
Lenin's speech a favourable contrast to the speeches of the usual "parlia-
mentary" orator.
But what captivated me at the time was not these features of Lenin's
speeches. I was captivated by that irresistible force of logic in them which,
although somewhat terse, thoroughly overpowered his audience, gradually
electrified it, and then, as the saying goes, captivated it completely. I re-
member that many of the delegates said: "The logic of Lenin's speeches is
like a mighty tentacle which seizes you on all sides as in a vise and from
whose grip you are powerless to tear yourself away: you must either sur-
render or make up your mind to utter defeat."
I think that this characteristic of Lenin's speeches was the strongest
feature of his art as an orator.
NO WHINING
The second time I met Lenin \v-as in 1906 at the Stockholm Congress of
our Party. You know that the Bolsheviks were in the minority at this con-
gress and suffered defeat. This was the first time I saw Lenin in the role of
the vanquished. But he was not a jot like those leaders who whine and lose
heart when beaten. On the contrary, defeat transformed Lenin into a
spring of compressed energy which inspired his followers for new battles
and for future victory. 1 said that Lenin was defeated. But was it defeat?
You had only to look at his opponents, the victors at the Stockholm Con*
gress — Plekhanov, Axelrod, Martov and the rest. They had little of the ap-
pearance of real victors, for Lenin's implacable criticism of Menshevism
had not left one whole bone in their body, so to speak. I remember that we,
the Bolshevik delegates, huddled together in a group, gazing at Lenin and
asking his advice. The talk of some of the delegates betrayed a note of weari-
ness and dejection. I recall that Lenin bitingly replied through clenched
teeth: "Don't whine, comrades, we are bound to win, for we are right." Ha-
tred of the whining intellectual, faith in our own strength, confidence
in victory — that is what Lenin impressed upon us. It was felt that the
Bolsheviks' defeat was temporary, that they were bound to win in the
early future*
3-686
34 J. V. STALIN
"No whining over defeat" — this was a feature of Lenin's activities that
helped him to weld together an army faithful to the end and confident of
its strength.
NO CONCEIT
«
At the next Congress, held in 1907 in London, the Bolsheviks were vic-
torious. This was the first time I saw Lenin in the role of vie tor .Victory
usually turns the heads of leaders and makes them haughty and conceited.
They begin inmost cases by celebrating their victory and resting on their
laurels. Lenin did not resemble such leaders one jot. On the contrary, it was
after a victory that he was most vigilant and cautious. I recall that Lenin
insistently impressed on the delegates: "The first thing is not to be carried
away by victory, not to grow conceited; the second thing is to consolidate
the victory; the third thing is to crush the opponent, for he has been defeat-
ed, but by no means crushed." He poured withering scorn on those dele-
gates who frivolously asserted: "It is all over with the Mensheviks now."
He had no difficulty in showing that the Mensheviks still had roots in the
labour movement, that they had to be fought with skill, and that all over-
estimation of one 'sown strength and, especially, all underestimation of the
strength of the adversary had to be avoided.
"No conceit in victory" — this was a feature of Lenin's character that
helped him soberly to weigh the strength of the enemy and to insure the
Party against possible surprises.
FIDELITY TO PRINCIPLE
Party leaders cannot but prize the opinion of the majority of their party.
A majority is a power with which a leader cannot but reckon. Lenin under-
stood this no less than any other party leader. But Lenin never was a cap-
tive of the majority, especially when that majority had no basis of prin-
ciple. There have been times in the history of our Party when the opinion
of the majority or the momentary interests of the Party conflicted with the
fundamental interests of the proletariat. On such occasions Lenin would ne-
ver hesitate and resolutely took his stand on principle as against the majo-
rity of the Party. Moreover, he did not fear on such occasions literally to
stand alone against all, considering — as he would often say — that "a
policy of principle is the only correct policy."
Particularly characteristic in this respect are the two following facts.
First fact. This was in the period 1909-11, when the Party had been
smashed by the counter-revolution and was in a state of complete disintegra-
tion. It was a period of disbelief in the Party, of wholesale desertion from
the Party, not only by the intellectuals, but partly even by the workers; it
LENIN 36
was a period when the necessity for a secret organization was be ing denied,
a period of Liquidatorism and collapse. Not only the Mensheviks, but even
the Bolsheviks consisted of a number of factions and trends, which for the
most part were severed from the working-class movement. We know that it
was at this period that the idea arose of completely liquidating the secret
party and of organizing the workers into a legally-sanctioned, liberal, Sto-
lypin party. Lenin at that time was the only one not to succumb to the
general contagion and to hold aloft the Party banner assembling the scat-
tered and shatteredforces of the Party with astonishing patience and extraor-
dinary persistence, combating each and every anti-Party trend within the
wofking-class movement and defending the Party idea with unusual courage
and unparalleled perseverance.
We know that in this fight for the Party idea, Lenin later proved the
victor.
Second fact. This was the period 1914-17, when the imperialist war was in
full swing, and when all, or nearly all, the Social-Democratic and Social-
ist parties had succumbed to the general patriotic frenzy and placed them-
selves at the service of the imperialism of their respective countries. It was
a period when the Second International had hauled down its colours to
capitalism, when even people like Plekhanov, Kautsky, Guesde and the
rest were unable to withstand the tide of chauvinism. Lenin at that time
was the only one, or nearly the only one, to wage a determined struggle
against social-chauvinism and social-pacifism, to denounce the treachery
of theGuesdes and Kautskys, and to stigmatize the half-heartedness of the
betwixt-and-between "revolutionaries." Lenin knew that he was backed by
only an insignificant minority, but to him this was not of decisive moment
for he knew that the only correct policy with a future before it was the pol-
icy of consistent internationalism, that the only correct policy was one of
principle.
We know that in this fight for a new International Lenin proved the
victor.
"A policy of principle is the only correct policy" — this was the formula
with which Lenin took "impregnable" positions by assault and won over
the best elements of the proletariat to revolutionary Marxism.
FAITH IN THE MASSES
Theoreticians and leaders of parties, men who are acquainted with the
history of nations and who have studied the history of revolutions from
beginning to end, are sometimes afflicted by an unsavoury disease.
This disease is called fear of the masses, disbelief in the creative power
of the masses. This sometimes gives rise in the leaders to an aristocratic
attitude towards the masses, who although they may not be versed in the
3*
36 J. V. STALIN
history of revolutions are destined to destroy the old order and build the
new. This aristocratic attitude is due to a fear that the elements may break
loose, that the masses may "destroy too much"; it is due to a desire to play
the part of a mentor who tries to teach the masses from books, but who is
averse to learning from the masses.
Lenin was the very antithesis of such leaders. I do not know of any revo-
lutionary who had so profound a faith in the creative power of the proletar-
iat and in the revolutionary fitness of its class instinct as Lenin. I do not
know of any revolutionary who could scourge the smug critics of the "chaos
of revolution" and the "riot of unauthorized actions of the masses" so
ruthlessly as Lenin. I recall that when in the course of a conversation one
comrade said that "the revolution should be followed by normal order,"
Lenin sarcastically remarked: "It is a regrettable thing when people who
would be revolutionaries forget that the most normal order in history is
revolutionary order."
Hence, Lenin's contempt for all who superciliously looked down on the
masses and tried to teach them from books. And hence, Lenin's constant
precept: learn from the masses, try to comprehend their actions, carefully
study the practical experience of the struggle of the masses.
Faith in the creative power of the masses — this was the feature of
Lenin's activities which enabled him to comprehend the elemental forces
and to direct their movement into the channel of the proletarian
revolution.
THE GENIUS OF REVOLUTION
Lenin was born for revolution. He was, in truth, the genius of revolu-
tionary outbreaks'and a supreme master of the art of revolutionary leader-
ship. Never did he feel so free and happy as in times of revolutionary up-
heavals . I do not mean by this that Lenin equally approved of all revolution*
ary upheavals, or that he was in favour of revolutionary outbreaks at all
times and under all circumstances. Not at all. What I do mean is that never
was Lenin's brilliant insight displayed so fully and conspicuously as in
times of revolutionary outbreak. During revolutionary upheavals he lit-
erally blossomed forth, became a seer, divined the movement of classes
and the probable zigzags of revolution as if they lay in the palm of his hand.
It used to be said with good reason in our Party circles: "Lenin swims in the
tide of revolution like a fish in water."
Hence, the "amazing" clarity of Lenin's tactical slogans and the
"astounding" boldness of his revolutionary plans.
I recall two facts which are particularly characteristic of this feature of
Lenin.
First fact. It was in the period just prior to the October Revolution,
when millions of workers, peasants and soldiers, driven by the crisis in the
LENIN 37
rear and at the front, were demanding peace and liberty; when the generals
and the bourgeoisie were working for a military dictatorship for the sake
of "war to a finish"; when so-called "public opinion" and the so-called
"Socialist parties" were inimical to the Bolsheviks and were branding
them as "German spies"; when Kerensky was trying — already with some
success — to drive the Bolshevik Party underground; and when the still
powerful and disciplined armies of the Austro-German coalition stood
confronting our weary, disintegrating armies, while the West-European
"Socialists" lived in blissful alliance with their governments for the
sake of "war to a victorious finish. . . ."
What did starting an uprising at such a moment mean? Starting an up-
rising in such a situation meant staking everything. But Lenin did not
fear the risk, for he knew, he saw with his prophetic eye, that an uprising
was inevitable, that it would win; that an uprising in Russia would pave
the way for the termination of the imperialist war, that it would rouse the
worn-out masses of the Wrest, that it would transform the imperialist war
into a civil war; that the uprising would usher in a Republic of Soviets, and
that the Republic of Soviets would serve as a bulwark for the revolutionary
movement all over the world.
We know that Lenin's revolutionary foresight was subsequently con-
firmed with unparalleled fidelity.
Second fact. It was in the very first days of the October Revolution,
when the Council of People's Commissars was trying to compel General
Dukhonin, the mutinous Commander- in-Chief, to terminate hostilities and
to start negotiations for an armistice with the Germans. I recall that
Lenin, Krylenko (the future Commander- in-Chief) and I went to General
Headquarters in Petrograd to negotiate with Dukhonin over the direct wire.
It was a ghastly moment. Dukhonin and General Headquarters categorically
refused to obey the orders of the Council of People's Commissars. The army
officers were completely under the sway of General Headquarters. As for
the soldiers, no one could tell what this army of twelve million would say,
subordinated as it was to the so-called army organizations, which were
hostile to the Soviets. In Petrograd itself, as wTe know, a mutiny of the mil-
itary cadets was brewing. Furthermore, Kerensky was marching on Petro-
grad. I recall that after a pause at the direct wire, Lenin's face suddenly lit
up; it became extraordinarily radiant. Clearly, he had arrived at a deci-
sion. "Let's go to the wireless station," he said, "it will stand us in good
stead. We will issue a special order dismissing General Dukhonin, appoint
Krylenko Commander- in-Chief in his place and appeal to the soldiers over
the heads of the officers, calling upon them to surround the generals, to ter-
minate hostilities, to establish contact with the German and Austrian
soldiers and take the cause of peace into their own hands."
This was "a leap in the dark." But Lenin did not shrink from this
"leap"; on the contrary, he made it eagerly, for he knew that the army
wanted peace and would win peace, sweeping every obstacle from its path;
3S J. V. STALIN
he knew that this method of establishing peace was bound to have its effect
on the German and Austrian soldiers and would give full rein to the yearn-
ing for peace on every front without exception.
We know that here, too, Lenin's revolutionary foresight was subse-
quently confirmed with the utmost fidelity.
Brilliant insight, the ability rapidly to grasp and divine the inner mean-
ing of impending events, was that quality in Lenin which enabled him to
lay down the correct strategy and a clear line of conduct at crucial moments
of the revolutionary movement.
Pravda No. 34,
February 12, 1924
INTERVIEW GIVEN TO THE FIRST AMERICAN
LABOUR DELEGATION
SEPTEMBER 9, 1927
(Excerpt)
QUESTIONS PUT BY THE DELEGATION AND STALIN'S
ANSWERS
QUESTION 1: What new principles have Lenin and the Communist
Party added to Marxism in practice? Would it be correct to say that Lenin
believed in "constructive revolution99 whereas Marx was more inclined to
wait for the culmination of the development of economic forces'?
ANSWER: I think that Lenin "added" no "new principles" to
Marxism nor did he abolish any of the "old" principles of Marxism.
Lenin was, and remains, the most loyal and consistent pupil of Marx
and Engels, and he wholly and entirely based himself on the principles
of Marxism. But Lenin did not merely carry out the doctrines of Marx
and Engels. He developed these doctrines still further. What does that
mean? It means that he developed the doctrines of Marx and Engels
in accordance with the new conditions of development, with the new
phase of capitalism, with imperialism. This means that in developing
the doctrines of Marx in the new conditions of the class struggle, Lenin
contributed something new to the general treasury of Marxism as compared
with what was contributed by Marx and Engels and with what could be
contributed in the pre-imperialist period of capitalism. The new contri-
bution Lenin made to the treasury of Marxism is wholly and entirely
based on the principles laid down by Marx and Engels. It is in this sense
that we speak of Leninism as Marxism of the era of imperialism and
proletarian revolutions. Here are a few questions to which Lenin contrib-
uted something new in development of the doctrines of Marx.
First: the question of monopoly capitalism — of imperialism as the
new phase of capitalism. In Capital Marx and Engels analysed the foun-
dations of capitalism. But Marx and Engels lived in the period of the
39
40 j. v. STALIN
domination of pre-monopoly capitalism, in the period of the smooth
evolution of capitalism and its "peaceful" expansion all over the world.
This old phase of capitalism came to a close towards the end of the
nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, when Marx and
Engels were already dead. Clearly, Marx and Engels could only conjecture
the new conditions of development of capitalism that arose out of the
new phase of capitalism — which succeeded the old phase — out of the
imperialist, monopoly phase of development, when the smooth evolution
of capitalism gave way to spasmodic, cataclysmic development, when
the unevenness of development and the contradictions of capitalism be-
came particularly pronounced, and when the struggle for markets and
spheres for capital export, in view of the extreme unevenness of develop-
ment, made periodical imperialist wars for periodical redivisions of the
world and of spheres of influence inevitable. The service Lenin rendered,
and, consequently, his new contribution, was that, on the basis of the
main principles enunciated in Capital, he made a reasoned Marxist anal-
ysis of imperialism as the last phase of capitalism, and exposed its
ulcers and the conditions of its inevitable doom. On the basis of this
analysis arose Lenin's well-known principle that the conditions of im-
perialism made possible the victory of Socialism in individual capitalist
countries, taken separately.
Second: the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The funda-
mental idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the political rule
of the proletariat and as a method of overthrowing the rule of capital by
force was advanced by Marx and Engels. Lenin's new contribution in
this field was: a) that he discovered the Soviet form of government as
the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, utilizing for this
purpose the experience of the Paris Commune and the Russian revolvftion;
b) that he deciphered the formula of the dictatorship of the proletariat
from the angle of the problem of the allies of the proletariat, and defined
the dictatorship of the proletariat as a special form of class alliance
between the proletariat, as the leader, and the exploited masses of the
non-proletarian classes (the peasantry, etc.), as the led; c) that he laid
particular emphasis on the fact that the dictatorship of the proletariat
is the highest type of democracy in class society, the form of proletarian
democracy, which expresses the interests of the majority (the exploited),
as against capitalist democracy, which expresses the interests of the
minority (the exploiters).
Third: the question of the forms and methods of successfully building
Socialism in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the period
of transition from capitalism to Socialism, in a country surrounded by
capitalist states. Marx and Engels regarded the period of the dictatorship
of the proletariat as a more or less prolonged one, full of revolutionary
conflicts and civil wars, in the course of which the proletariat, being in
power, would take the economic, political, cultural and organizational
INTERVIEW TO FIRST AMERICAN LABOUR DELEGATION 41
measures necessary for creating, in the place of the old, capitalist society,
a new, Socialist society, a society without classes and without a state.
Lenin wholly and entirely adhered to these fundamental principles of
Marx and Engels. Lenin's new contribution in this field was: a) he proved
that a complete Socialist society could be built in a country with a dicta-
torship of the proletariat surrounded by imperialist states, provided the
country were not crushed by the military intervention of the surrounding
capitalist states; b) he outlined the specific lines of economic policy
(the "New Economic Policy") by which the proletariat, being in command
of the economic key positions (industry, land, transport, the banks,
etc.) could link up socialized industry with agriculture ("the bond be-
tween industry and peasant farming") and thus lead the whole national
economy towards Socialism; c) he outlined the specific ways of gradu-
ally guiding and drawing the basic mass of the peasantry into the channel
of Socialist construction through the medium of co-operative societies,
which in the hands of the proletarian dictatorship are a powerful instru-
ment for the transformation of small peasant farming and for the re-
education of the mass of the peasantry in the spirit of Socialism.
Fourth: the question of the hegemony of the proletariat in revolution,
in all popular revolutions, both in a revolution against tsardom and in
a revolution against capitalism. Marx and Engels presented the main
outlines of the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat. Lenin's new contri-
bution in this field was that he developed and expanded these out-
lines into a harmonious system of" the hegemony of the proletariat,
into a harmonious system of proletarian leadership of the working
masses in town and country not only as regards the overthrow of
tsardom and capitalism, but also as regards the building of social-
ism under the dictatorship of the proletariat. We know that, thanks
to Lenin and his Party, the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat
was applied in a masterly fashion in Russia. This incidentally ex-
plains why the revolution in Russia brought about the power of the
proletariat. In previous revolutions it usually happened that the
workers did all the fighting at the barricades, shed their blood and
overthrew the old order, but that the power fell into the hands of
the bourgeoisie, which then oppressed and exploited the workers.
That was the case in England and France. That was the case in
Germany. Here, in Russia, however, things took a different turn.
In Russia, the workers did not merely represent the shock
troops of the revolution. While it represented the shock troops
of the revolution, the Russian proletariat at the same time strove
for the hegemony, for the political leadership of all the ex-
ploited masses of town and country, rallying them around itself, wrest-
ing them from the bourgeoisie and politically isolating the bour-
geoisie. Being the leader of the exploited masses, the Russian prole-
tariat all the time fought to take the power into its own hands and to
42 J. V. STALIN
utilize it in its own interests against the bourgeoisie, against capitalism.
This in fact explains why every powerful outbreak of the revolution in
Russia, whether in October 1905 or in February 1917, gave rise to Soviets
of Workers* Deputies as the embryo of the new apparatus of power — whose
function it is to suppress the bourgeoisie — as against the bourgeois parlia-
ment, the old apparatus of power — whose function it is to suppress the
proletariat. Twice did the bourgeoisie in Russia try to restore the bourgeois
parliament and put an end to the Soviets: in August 1917, at the time
of the "Pre-parliament," before the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks,
and in January 1918, at the time of the "Constituent Assembly," after
the seizure of power by the proletariat. And on both occasions it suffered
defeat. Why? Because the bourgeoisie was already politically isolated,
the millions of working people regarded the proletariat as the sole leader
of the revolution, and because the Soviets had already been tried and
tested by the masses as their own workers' government, to exchange
which for a bourgeois parliament would have meant suicide for the pro-
letariat. It is not surprising, therefore, that bourgeois parliamentarism
did not take root in Russia. That is why the revolution in Russia led
to the rule of the proletariat. Such were the results of the application of
Lenin's system of the hegemony of the proletariat in revolution.
Fifth: the national and colonial question. Analysing in their time the
events in Ireland, India, China, the Central European countries, Poland
and Hungary, Marx and Engels developed the basic and initial ideas on
the national and colonial question. Lenin in his works based himself
on these ideas. Lenin's new contribution in this field was: a) that he gath-
ered these ideas into one harmonious system of views on national and co-
lonial revolutions in the epoch of imperialism; b) that he connected the
national and colonial question with the overthrow of imperialism; and
c) that he declared the national and colonial question to be a component
part of the general question of international proletarian revolution.
Lastly: the question of the Party of the proletariat. Marx and Engels
gave the main outlines of the idea of the Party as the vanguard of the
proletariat, without which (the Party) the proletariat could not achieve
its emancipation, either in the sense of capturing power or in the sense
of reconstructing capitalist society. Lenin's contribution in this field
was that he developed these outlines further and applied them to the new
conditions of the struggle of the proletariat in the period of imperialism,
and showed: a) that the Party is a higher form of class organization of
the proletariat compared with other forms of proletarian organization
(labour unions, co-operative societies, the organization of state) whose
work it is the Party's function to generalize and to direct; b) that the
dictatorship of the proletariat can be realized only through the Party,
the directing force of the dictatorship; c) that the dictatorship of the pro-
letariat can be complete only if it is led by one party, the Communist
Party, which does not and must not share the leadership with any other
INTERVIEW TO FIRST AMERICAN LABOUR DELEGATION 43
party; and d) that unless there is iron discipline in the Party, the task
of the dictatorship of the proletariat of suppressing the exploiters and
transforming class society into Socialist society cannot be accomplished.
This, in the main, is the new contribution made by Lenin in his works,
giving more specific form to and developing Marx's doctrine as applied
to the new conditions of the struggle of the proletariat in the period of
imperialism.
That is why we say that Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperial-
ism and proletarian revolutions.
It is clear from this that Leninism cannot be separated from Marxism;
still less can it be contrasted to Marxism.
The question submitted by the delegation goes on to ask: "Would
it be correct to say that Lenin believed in 'constructive revolution' whereas
Marx was more inclined to wait for the culmination of the develop-
ment of economic forces?" I think it would be absolutely incorrect to say
that. I think that every popular revolution, if it really is a popular rev-
olution, is a constructive revolution, for it breaks up the old system and
constructs, creates a new one. Of course, there is nothing constructive
in such revolutions — if they may be called that — as take place, say, in
Albania, in the form of comic opera "risings" of tribe against tribe. But
Marxists never regarded such comic opera "risings" as revolutions. We
are obviously not referring to such "risings," but to a mass popular rev-
olution in which the oppressed classes rise up against the oppressing
classes. Such a revolution cannot but be constructive. And it was pre-
cisely for such a revolution, and only for such a revolution, that Marx
and Lenin stood. It goes without saying that such a revolution cannot
arise under all conditions, that it can break out only under certain defi-
nite, favourable economic and political conditions.
QUESTION 12: Can you outline briefly the characteristics ef the
society of the future which Communi&rn is tryhig to create*.
ANSWER: The general characteristics of Communist society are
given in the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Briefly, the anatomy
of Communist society may be described as follows: It is a society in which:
a) there will be no private ownership of the instruments and means of
production but social, collective ownership; b) there will be no classes or
state, but workers in industry and agriculture managing their econom-
ic affairs as a free association of working people; c) national economy,
organized according to plan, will be based on the highest technique in
both industry and agriculture; d) there will be no antithesis between town
and country, between industry and agriculture; e) products will be dis-
tributed according to the principle of the old French Communists: "from
44 j. V. STALIN
each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs"; f) science
and art will enjoy conditions conducive to their highest development;
g) the individual, freed from bread and butter cares, and of the
necessity of cringing to the "powers that be" will become really free, etc.,
etc. Clearly, we are still remote from such a society.
With jcgard to the international conditions necessary for the complete
triumph of Communist society, these will develop and grow in propor-
tion as revolutionary crises and revolutionary outbreaks of the working
class in capitalist countries grow. It must not be imagined that the working
class in one country, or in several countries, will march towards Social-
ism, and still more to Communism, and that the capitalists of other
countries will sit still with folded arms and look on with indifference.
Still less must it be imagined that the working class in capitalist coun-
tries will agree to be mere spectators of the victorious development of
Socialism in one or another country. As a matter of fact, the capitalists
will do all in their power to crush such countries. As a matter
of fact, every important step taken towards Socialism, and still more
towards Communism, in any country will inevitably be accompanied by
the unrest rain able efforts of the working class in capitalist countries to
achieve the dictatorship and Socialism in those countries. Thus, in the
further progress of development of the international revolution, two world
centres will be formed: the Socialist centre, attracting to itself all the
countries gravitating towards Socialism, and the capitalist centre, attract-
ing to itself all the countries gravitating towards capitalism. The fight
between these two centres for the conquest of world economy will decide
the fate of capitalism and Communism throughout the whole world,
for the final defeat of world capitalism means the victory of Socialism
in the arena of world economy.
Pravda No. 210,
September 15, 1927
SPEECH DELIVERED AT A MEETING OF VOTERS
OF THE STALIN ELECTORAL AREA, MOSCOW
DECEMBER 11, 1937, IN THE GRAND THEATRE
Comrades, to tell you the truth, I had no intention of making a speech.
But our respected Nikita Sergeyevich [Khrushchov] dragged me to this
meeting by sheer force, so to speak. "Make a good speech," he said. What
shall 1 talk about, exactly what sort of speech? Everything that had to
be said before the elections has already been said and said again in the
speeches of our leading comrades, Kalinin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaga-
novich, and many other responsible comrades. What can be added to
these speeches?
What is needed, they say, are explanations of certain questions con-
nected with the election campaign. What explanations, on what ques-
tions? Everything that had to be explained has been explained and explained
again in the well-known Addresses of the Bolshevik Party, the Young
Communist League, the Ail-Union Central Trade Union Council, the Avia-
tion and Chemical Defence League and the Committee of Physical Cul-
ture. What can be added to these explanations?
Of course, one could make a light sort of speech about everything and
nothing. [Amusement.] Perhaps such a speech would amuse the audience.
They say that there are some great hands at such speeches not only over
there, in the capitalist countries, but here too, in the Soviet country.
[Laughter and applause.] But, firstly, I am no great hand at such speeches.
Secondly, is it worth while indulging in amusing things just now when
all of us, Bolsheviks, are, as they say, "up to our necks" in work?
I think not.
Clearly, you cannot make a good speech under such circumstances.
However, since I have taken the floor, I will have, of course, to say
at least something one way or another. [Loud applause.]
First of all, I would like to express my thanks [applause] to the elec-
tors for the confidence they have shown in me. [Applause.]
I have been nominated as candidate, and the Election Commission
of the Stalin Area of the Soviet capital has registered my candidature.
This, comrades, is an expression of great confidence* Permit me to
45
46 J. V. STALIN
convey my profound Bolshevik gratitudfe for this confidence that you
have shown in the Bolshevik Party of which I am a member, and in me
personally as a representative of that Party. [Loud applause.]
I know what confidence means. It naturally lays upon me new and addi-
tional duties and, consequently, new and additional responsibilities.
Well, it is not customary among us Bolsheviks to refuse responsibilities.
I accept 'them willingly. [Loud and prolonged applause.]
For my part, I would like to assure you, comrades, that you may safe-
ly rely on Comrade Stalin [Loud and sustained cheers. A voice: "And
we all stand for Comrade StalM"] You may take it for granted that Com-
rade Stalin will be able to discharge his duty to the people [applause], to
the working class [applause], to the peasantry [applause] and to the
intelligentsia. [Applause.]
Further, comrades, I would like to congratulate you on the occasion
of the forthcoming national holiday, the day of the elections to the Su-
preme Soviet of the Soviet Union. [Loud applause.] The forthcoming elec-
tions are not merely elections, comrades, they are really a national holi-
day of our workers, our peasants and our intelligentsia. [Loud applause.]
Never in the history of the world have there been such really free and
really democratic elections — never! History knows no other example
like it. [Applause.] The point is not that our elections will be universal,
equal, secret and direct, although that fact in itself is of great impor-
tance. The point is that our universal elections will be carried out as the
freest elections and the most democratic of any country in the world.
Universal elections exist and are held in some capitalist countries,
too, so-called democratic countries. But in what atmosphere are elections
held there? In an atmosphere of class conflicts, in an atmosphere of class
enmity, in an atmosphere of pressure brought to bear on the electors by
the capitalists, landlords, bankers and other capitalist sharks. Such
elections, even if they are universal, equal, secret and direct, cannot be
called altogether free and altogether democratic elections.
Here, in our country, on the contrary, elections are held in an entirely
different atmosphere. Here there are no capitalists and no landlords and,
consequentlyf no pressure is exerted by propertied classes on non-propertied
classes* Here elections are held in an atmosphere of collaboration between
the workers, the peasants and the intelligentsia, in an atmosphere of mutual
confidence between them, in an atmosphere, I would say, of mutual friend*
ship; because there are no capitalists in our country, no landlords, no
exploitation and nobody, in fact, to bring pressure to bear on people in
order to distort their will.
That is why our elections are the only really free and really democrat-
ic elections in the whole world. [Loud applause.]
Such free and really democratic elections could arise only on the basis
of the triumph of the Socialist system, only on the basis of the fact that
in our country Socialism is not merely being built, but has already become
SPEECH AT MEETING OF VOTERS 47
part of life, of the daily life of the people. Some ten years ago the question
might still be debated whether Socialism could be built in our country
or not. Today this is no longer a debatable question. Today it is a matter
of facts, a matter of real life, a matter of habits that permeate the whole
life of the people. Our mills and factories are being run without capital-
ists. The work is directed by men and women of the people. That is what
we call Socialism in practice. In our fields the tillers of the land work
without landlords and without kulaks. The work is directed by men and
women of the people. That is what we call Socialism in daily life, that
is what we call a free, Socialist life.
It is on this basis that our new, really free and really democratic elec-
tions have arisen, elections which have no precedent in the history of
mankind.
How then, after this, can one refrain from congratulating you on the
occasion of the day of national celebration, the day of the elections to
the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union! [Loud, general cheers.]
Further, comrades, I would like to give you some advice, the advice
of a candidate to his electors. If you take capitalist countries you will
find that peculiar, I would say, rather strange relations exist there
between deputies and voters. As long as the elections are in progress, the
deputies flirt with the electors, fawn on them, swear fidelity and make
heaps of promises of every kind. It would appear that the deputies are
completely dependent on the electors. As soon as the elections are over,
and the candidates have become deputies, relations undergo a radical
change. Instead of the deputies being dependent on the electors, they
become entirely independent. For four or five years, that is, until the
next elections, the deputy feels quite free, independent of the people,
of his electors. He may pass from one camp to another, he may turn
from the right road to the wrong road, he may even become entangled
in machinations of a not altogether savoury character, he may turn as
many somersaults as he likes — he is independent.
Can such relations be regarded as normal? By no means, comrades.
This circumstance was taken into consideration by our Constitution and
it made it a law that electors have the right to recall their deputies
before the expiration of their term of office if they begin to play tricks,
if they turn off the road, or if they forget that they are dependent on
the people, on the electors.
This is a wonderful law, comrades. A deputy should know that he is
the servant of the people, their emissary in the Supreme Soviet, and
that he must follow the line laid down in the mandate given him by the
people. If he turns off the road, the electors are entitled to demand new
elections, and as to the deputy who turned off the road, they have the
right to send him packing. [Laughter and applause.] This is a wonderful
law. My advice, the advice of a candidate to his electors, is that they re*
member this electors ' right, the right to recall deputies before the expi*
48 j. V. STALIN
ration of their term of office, that they keep an eye on their deputies, con-
trol them and, if they should take it into their heads to turn off the right
road, to get rid of them and demand new elections. The government is
obliged to appoint new elections. My advice is to remember this law and
to take advantage of it should need arise.
And, lastly, one more piece of advice from a candidate to his electors.
What fn general must one demand of one's deputies, selecting from all
possible demands the most elementary?
The electors, the people, must demand that their deputies should
remain equal to their tasks, that in their work they should not sink to
the level of political philistines, that in their posts they should remain pol-
itical figures of the Lenin type, that as public figures they should be as
clear and definite as Lenin was [applause], that they should be as fearless
in battle and as merciless towards the enemies of the people as Lenin was
[applause], that they should be free from all panic, from any semblance
of panic, when things begin to get complicated and some danger or other
looms on the horizon, that they should be as free from all semblance of
panic as Lenin was [applause], that they should be as wise and deliber-
ate in deciding complex problems requiring a comprehensive orientation
and a comprehensive weighing of all pros and cons as Lenin was [applause],
that they should be as upright and honest as Lenin was [applause], that
they should love their people as Lenin did. [Applause.]
Can we say that all the candidates are public figures precisely of this
kind? I would not say so. There are all sorts of people in the world, there
are all sorts of public figures in the world. There are people of whom you
cannot say what they are, whether they are good or bad, courageous or
timid, for the people heart and soul or for the enemies of the people.
There are such people and there are such public figures. They are also to
be found among us, the Bolsheviks. You know yourselves, comrades,
there are black sheep in every family. [Laughter and applause.] Of people
of this indefinite type, people who resemble political philistines rather
than political figures, people of this vague, uncertain type, the great
Russian writer, Gogol, rather aptly said: "Vague sort of people," says he,
"neither one thing nor the other, you can't make head or tail of them,
they are neither Bogdan in town nor Seliphan in the country." [Laughter
and applause.] There are also some rather apt popular sayings about
such indefinite people and public figures: "A middling sort of man — nei-
ther fish nor flesh" [general laughter and applause], "neither a candle for
god nor a poker for the devil." [General laughter and applause.]
I cannot say with absolute certainty that among the candidates (I beg
their pardon, of course) and among our public figures there are not people
who resemble political philistines more than anything else, who in char-
acter and make-up resemble people of the type referred to in the popular
saying: "Neither a candle for god nor a poker for the devil." [Laughter
and applause.]
SPEECH AT MEETING OF VOTERS 49
I would like you, comrades, to exercise systematic influence on your
deputies, to impress upon them that they must constantly keep before
them the great image of the great Lenin and emulate Lenin in all things.
[Applause.}
The functions of the electors do not end with the elections. They con-
tinue during the whole term of the given Supreme Soviet. I have already
mentioned the law which empowers the electors to recall their deputies
before the expiration of their term of office if they should turn off the
right road. Hence, it is the duty and right of the electors to keep their
deputies constantly under their control and to impress upon them that they
must under no circumstances sink to the level of political phil is tines,
impress upon them that they must be like the great Lenin. [Applause.}
Such, comrades, is my second piece of advice to you, the advice of
a candidate to his electors. [Loud and sustained applause and cheers. All
rise and turn towards the goternment box, to which Comrade Stalin proceeds
from the platform. Voices: "Hurrah for the great Stalinl" "Hurrah for
Comrade titalinl" "Long live Comrade Stalinl" "Long live the first of the
Leninists, candidate for the Soviet of the Union, Comrade Stalinl"]
Pravda No. 340,
December 12, 1937
4-685
SPEECH DELIVERED AT A RECEPTION IN THE
KREMLIN TO HIGHER EDUCATIONAL WORKERS
MAY 17, 1938
Comrades, permit me to propose a toast to science and its progress ,.
and to the health of the men of science.
To the progress of science, of that science which does not fence itself
off from the people and does not hold aloof from them, but which is pre-
pared to serve the people and to transmit to them all the benefits of science,
and which does not serve the people under compulsion, but voluntar-
ily and willingly. [Applause.]
To the progress of science, of that science which will not permit it^
old and recognized leaders smugly to invest themselves in the robe of
high priests and monopolists of science; which understands the meaning,
significance and omnipotence of an alliance between the old scientists
and the young scientists; which voluntarily and willingly throws open
every door of science to the young forces of our country, and affords them
the opportunity of scaling the peaks of science, and which recognizes that
the future belongs to the young scientists. [Applause.]
To the progress of science, of that science whose devotees, while under-
standing the power and significance of the established scientific tradi-
tions and ably utilizing them in the interests of science, are nevertheless
not willing to be slaves of these traditions; the science which has the
courage and determination tb smash the old traditions, standards and
views when they become antiquated and begin to act as a fetter on pro-
gress, and which is able to create new traditions, new standards and new
views. [Applause.]
In the course of its development science has known not a few coura-
geous men who were able to break down the old and create the new, de-
spite all obstacles, despite everything. Such scientists as Galileo, Dar-
win— and many others — are widely known. I should like to dwell on one
of these eminent men of science, one who at the same time was the great-
est man of modern times. I am referring to Lenin, our teacher, our tutor.
[Applause.] Remember 1917. A scientific analysis of the social develop-
ment of Russia and of the international situation brought Lenin to the
60
SPEECH TO HIGHER EDUCATIONAL WORKERS 61
conclusion that the only way out of the situation lay in the victory of
Socialism in Russia. This conclusion came as a complete surprise to many
men of science of the day. Plekhanov, an outstanding man of science, spoke
of Lenin with contempt, and declared that he was "raving. " Other men
of science, no less well-known, declared that "Lenin had gone mad,"
and that he ought to be put away in a safe place. Scientists of all kinds
set up a howl that Lenin was destroying science. But Lenin was not afraid
to go against the current, against the force of routine. And Lenin won.
Here you have an example of a man of science who boldly fought an
antiquated science and laid the road for a new science.
But sometimes it is not well-known men of science who lay the new
roads for science and technology, but men entirely unknown in the scien-
tific world, plain, practical men, innovators in their field. Here, sitting
at this table, are Comrades Stakhanov and Papanin. They are unknown
in the scientific world, they have no scientific degrees, but are just prac-
tical men in their field. But who does not know that in their practical
work in industry Stakhanov and the Stakhanovites have upset the exist-
ing standards, which were established by well-known scientists and tech-
nologists, have shown that they were antiquated, and have introduced
new standards which conform to the requirements of real science and
technology? VC ho does not know that in their practical work on the drift-
ing ice-floe Papanin and the Papaninites upset the old conception of
the Arctic, in passing, as it were, without any special effort, showed that
it was antiquated, and established a new conception which conforms to
the demands of real science? Who can deny that Stakhanov and Papanin
are innovators in science, men of our advanced science?
There you see what "miracles" are still performed in science!
I have been speaking of science. But there are all kinds of science,
The science of which 1 have been speaking is advanced science.
To the progress of our advanced science!
To the men of advanced science!
To Lenin and Leninism!
To Stakhanov and the Stakhanovites!
To Papanin and the Papaninites! [Applause.}
Piavda No. 136,
May 19, 1938
SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE RED ARMY PARADE
ON THE RED SQUARE, MOSCOW
NOVEMBER 7, 1941
Comrades, Red Armymen and Red Navymen, commanders and polit-
ical instructors, working men and working women, collective farmers —
men and women, workers engaged in intellectual pursuits, brothers and
sisters in the rear of our enemy who have temporarily fallen under the
yoke of the German brigands, and our valiant partisans, men and women,
•who are destroying the rear of the German invaders!
On behalf of the Soviet government and our Bolshevik Party I greet
and congratulate you on the 24th anniversary of the Great October So-
cialist Revolution.
Comrades, it is in strenuous circumstances that we are today celebrat-
ing the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution. The perfidious
attack of the German brigands and the war which has been forced upon
us have placed our country in jeopardy. We have temporarily lost a num-
ber of regions, the enemy has appeared at the gates of Leningrad and
Moscow. The enemy reckoned that after the very first blow our Army
would be dispersed, and our country would be forced to her knees. But the
enemy sadly miscalculated. In spite of temporary reverses, our Army and
our Navy are heroically repulsing the enemy's attacks along the whole
front and inflicting heavy losses upon him, while our country — our entire
country — has become transformed into one fighting camp bent on encom-
passing, together with our Army and our Navy, the defeat of the German
invaders.
There have been times when our country was in even more difficult
straits. Recall the year 1918, when we celebrated the first anniversary
of the October Revolution. Three-quarters of our country was at that
time in the hands of foreign invaders. The Ukraine, the Caucasus, Cen-
tral Asia, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East were temporarily lost to
us. We had no allies, we had no Red Army — we had only just begun to
form it; there was a shortage of food, of armaments, of clothing for the
52
SPEECH AT RED ARMY PARADE 53
Army. Fourteen states were encroaching on our country. But we did not
become despondent, we did not lose heart. In the fire of war we forged
the Red Army and converted our country into a military camp. The
spirit of the great Lenin inspired us at the time in the war against the.
invaders. And what happened? We routed the invaders, recovered all our
lost territory, and achieved victory.
Today the position of our country is far better than it was 23 years
ago. Our country is now ever so much richer than it was 23 years ago as
regards industry, food and raw materials. We now have allies, who to-
gether with us are maintaining a united front against the German invad-
ers. We now enjoy the sympathy and support of all the nations of Europe
who have fallen under the yoke of Hitler's tyranny. We now have a splen-
did Army and a splendid Navy, who are staunchly defending the liberty
and independence of our country. We experience no serious shortage
of either food, or armaments or army clothing. Our entire country, all
the peoples of our country, support our Army and our Navy, helping
them to smash the invading hordes of German fascists. Our reserves
of man power are inexhaustible. The spirit of the great Lenin and his
victorious banner inspire us today in this Patriotic War just as they did
23 years ago.
Can there be any doubt that we can and are bound to defeat the Ger-
man invaders?
The enemy is not so strong as some frightened little intellectuals depict
him to be. The devil is not so terrible as he is painted. Who can deny that
our Red Army has time and again compelled the vaunted German troops
to flee in panic? If we judge, not by the boastful assertions of the German
propagandists, but by the actual position of Germany, it will not be
difficult to understand that the German fascist invaders are now on the
brink of disaster. Hunger and poverty reign in Germany today; in the
four months of war Germany has lost four and a half million men; Ger-
many is bleeding at every pore, her reserves of man power are giving
out, the spirit of indignation is spreading not only among the peoples
of Europe who have fallen under the yoke of tl: e German invaders, but also
among the German people themselves, who see no end to the war. The
German invaders are exerting their last efforts. There is no doubt that
Germany will be unable to stand such a strain for long. Another few
months, another half-year, perhaps another year, and Hitler Germany
must collapse beneath the weight of her crimes.
Comrades, Red Armymen and Red Navymen, commanders and politi-
cal instructors, men and women partisans, the whole world is looking to
you as the force capable of destroying the plundering hordes of German
invaders. The enslaved peoples of Europe who have fallen under the
yoke of the German invaders look to you as their liberators. A great
liberating mission has fallen to your lot. Be worthy of this mission! The
war you are waging is a war of liberation, a just war. Let the heroic
64 J.V..STAUN
images >of -our great forebears — Alexander Nevsky, Dimitri Donskoi,
Ku2ma Minin, Dimitri Pozharsky, Alexander , Suvorov and Mikhail
Kutuzov-*— inspire you in this war I May you be inspired by the victorious
banner of the great Lenin!
For the utter defeat of the German invaders I
Death to the German invaders!
Long live our glorious Motherland, her liberty and her independence!
• Under the banner of Lenin — forward to victory!
Pravda No. 310,
8, 1941
V. I. LENIN
SELECTED WORKS
ON MARX AND MARXISM
THE THREE SOURCES AND THREE COMPONENT
PARTS OF MARXISM
Throughout the civilized world the teachings of Marx evoke the utmost
hostility and hatred of all bourgeois science (both official and liberal),
which regards Marxism as a kind of "pernicious sect." And no other
attitude is to be expected, for there can be no "impartial" social science
in a society based on class struggle. In one way or another, all official
and liberal science defends wage-slavery, whereas Marxism has declared
relentless war on wage-slavery. To expect science to be impartial in a wage-
slave society is as silly and naive as to expect impartiality from manu-
facturers on the question whether workers' wages should be increased by
decreasing the profits of capital.
But this is not all. The history of philosophy and the history of social
science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling
"sectarianism" in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound,
petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the highroad of
development of world civilization. On the contrary, the genius of Marx
consists precisely in the fact that he furnished answers to questions
which had already engrossed the foremost minds of humanity. His teach-
ings arose as a direct and immediate continuation- of the teachings
of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and
Socialism.
The Marxian doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is complete
and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world conception
which is irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or
defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor of the
best that was created by humanity in the nineteenth century in the
shape of German philosophy, English political economy and French
Socialism.
On these three sources of Marxism, which are at the same time its
component parts, we shall briefly dwell.
60 V. I. LENIN
I
The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout the modem
history of Europe, and especially at the end of the eighteenth century in
France, which was the scene of a decisive battle against every kind of
mediaeval rubbish, against feudalism in institutions and ideas* mate-
rialism has proved to be the only philosophy that is consistent, true to
all the teachings of natural science and hostile to superstition, cant and
so forth. The enemies of democracy therefore tried in every way to "re-
fute," undermine and defame materialism, and advocated various forms
of philosophical idealism, which always, in one way or another, amounts
to an advocacy or support of religion.
Marx and Engels always defended philosophical materialism in the
most determined manner and repeatedly explained the profound erro-
neousness of every deviation from this basis. Their views are most clearly
and fully expounded in the works of Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and Anti-
Diihring, which, like the Communist Manifesto, are handbooks for every
class-conscious worker.
But Marx did not stop at the materialism of the eighteenth century;
he advanced philosophy. He enriched it with the acquisitions of German
classical philosophy, especially of the Hegelian system, which in its turn
led to the materialism of Feuerbach. The chief of these acquisitions is
dialectics, i.e., the doctrine of development in its fullest and deepest form,
free of one-sidedness — the doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge,
which provides us with a reflection of eternally developing matter. The
latest discoveries of natural science — radium, electrons, the transmuta-
tion of elements — have remarkably confirmed Marx's dialectical mate-
rialism, despite the teachings of the bourgeois philosophers with their
"new" reversions to old and rotten idealism.
Deepening and developing philosophical materialism, Marx com-
pleted it, extended its knowledge of nature to the knowledge of human
society. Marx's historical materialism was one of the greatest achievements
of scientific thought. The chaos and arbitrariness that had previously
reigned in the views on history and politics gave way to a strikingly
integral and harmonious scientific theory, which shows how, in conse-
quence of the growth of productive forces, out of one system of social
life another and higher system develops — how capitalism, for instance,
grows out of feudalism.
Just as man's knowledge reflects nature (i.e., developing matter),
which exists independently of him, so man's social knowledge (i.e., his
various views and doctrines — philosophical, religious, political, and so
forth) reflects the economic system of society. Political institutions are a
* The reference here is to the bourgeois revolution in France (1789-1793). —
THREE SOURCES AND THREE COMPONENT PARTS OF MARXISM 61
superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for example, that
the various political forms of the modern- European states serve to fortify
the rule of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.
Marx's philosophy is finished philosophical materialism, which has
provided humanity, and especially the working class, with powerful
instruments of knowledge.
II
Having recognized that the economic system is the foundation on
-which the political superstructure is erected, Marx devoted most atten-
tion to the study of this economic system. Marx's principal work, Capital,
is devoted to a study of the economic system of modern, i.e., capitalist,
society.
Classical political economy, before Marx, evolved in England, the
most developed of the capitalist countries. Adam Smith and David Ri-
cardo, by their investigations of the economic system, laid the foundations
of the labour theory o1 ralu?,. Marx continued their work. He rigidly
proved and consistently developecl this theory. He showed that the value of
every commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary
labour time spent on its production.
Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation of things (the exchange
of one commodity for another), Marx revealed a relation of men. The
exchange of commodities expresses the tie by which individual produc-
ers are bound through the market. Money signifies that this tie is becom-
ing closer and closer, inseparably binding the entire economic life of
the individual producers into one whole. Capi faZ signifies a further devel-
opment of this tie: man's labour power becomes a commodity. The wage-
worker sells his labour power to the owner of the land, factories and
instruments of labour. The worker uses one part of the labour day to
cover the expense of maintaining himself and his family (wages), while
the other part of the day the worker toils without remuneration, creat-
ing surplus value for the capitalist, the source of profit, the source of
the wealth of the capitalist class.
The doctrine of surplus value is the cornerstone of Marx's economic
theory.
Capital, created by the labour of the worker, presses on the worker by
ruining the small masters and creating an army of unemployed. In indus-
try, the victory of large-scale production is at once apparent, but we ob-
serve the same phenomenon in agriculture as well: the superiority of large-
scale capitalist agriculture increases, the application of machinery grows,
peasant economy falls into the noose of money-capital, it declines and
sinks into ruin, burdened by its backward technique. In agriculture, the
V. I. LENIN
decline of small-scale production assumes different forms, but the decline
itself is an indisputable fact.
By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in
productivity of labour and to the creation of a monopoly position for the
associations of big capitalists. Production itself becomes more and more
social — hundreds of thousands and millions of workers become bound
together in a systematic economic organism — but the product of the
collective labour is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. The anarchy
of production grows, as do crises, the furious chase after markets and the
insecurity of existence of the mass of the population.
While increasing the dependence of the workers on capital, the cap*
italist system creates the great power of united labour.
Marx traced the development of capitalism from the first germs of
commodity economy, from simple exchange, to its highest forms, to large-
scale production.
And the experience of all capitalist countries, old and new, is clearly
demonstrating the truth of this Marxian doctrine to increasing numbers
of workers every year.
Capitalism has triumphed all over the world, but this triumph is only
the prelude to the triumph of labour over capital.
Ill
When feudalism was overthrown, and "free" capitalist society appeared
on God's earth, it at once became apparent that this freedom meant a new
system of oppression and exploitation of the toilers. Various Socialist
doctrines immediately began to arise as a reflection of and protest against
this oppression. But early Socialism was Utopian Socialism. It criticized
capitalist society, it condemned and damned it, it dreamed of its destruc-
tion, it indulged in fancies of a better order and endeavoured to convince
the rich of the immorality of exploitation.
But Utopian Socialism could not point the real way out. It could not
explain the essence of wage- slavery under capitalism, nor discover the laws
of its development, nor point to the social force which is capable of
becoming the creator of a new society.
Meanwhile, the stormy revolutions which everywhere in Europe, and
especially in France, accompanied the fall of feudalism, of serfdom, more
and more clearly revealed the struggle of classes as the basis and the motive-
force of the whole development.
Not a single victory of political freedom over the feudal class was won
except against desperate resistance. Not a single capitalist country-
evolved on a more or less free and democratic basis except by a life and
death struggle between the various classes of capitalist society.
THREE SOURCES AND THREE COMPONENT PARTS OF MARXISM 6$
The genius of Marx consists in the fact that he was able before anybody
else to draw from this and consistently apply the deduction that world!
history teaches. This deduction is the doctrine of the class struggle.
People always were and always will be the stupid victims of deceit and
self-deceit in politics until they learn to discover the interests of some class
behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and
promises. The supporters of reforms and improvements will always be
fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realize that every old
institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is main-
tained by the forces of some ruling classes. And there is only one way of
smashing the resistance of these classes, and that is to find, in the very so-
ciety which surrounds us, and to enlighten and organize for the struggle^
the forces which can — and, owing to their social position, must — con-
stitute a power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new*
Marx's philosophical materialism has alone shown the proletariat the
way out of the spiritual slavery in which all oppressed classes have hith-
erto languished. Marx's economic theory has alone explained the true
position of the proletariat in the general system of capitalism.
Independent organ zat ons of the proletariat are multiplying all
over the world, from America to Japan and from Sweden to South Africa-
The proletariat is becoming enlightened and educated by waging its
class struggle, it is ridding itself of the prejudices of bourgeois society; it
is rallying its ranks ever more closely and is learning to gauge the measure
of its successes, it is steeling its forces and is growing irresistibly.
Frosvcshcheniye No. 3,
March 1913
THE HISTORICAL DESTINY OF THE DOCTRINE
OF KARL MARX
The main thing in the doctrine of Marx is that it brings out the histor-
ic role of the proletariat as the builder of a Socialist society. Has the
progress of world events confirmed this doctrine since it was expounded
by Marx?
Marx first advanced it in 1844. The Communist Manifesto of Marx and
Engels, published in 1848, already gives an integral and systematic
exposition of this doctrine, which has remained the best exposition to
*his day. Subsequent world history clearly falls into three main periods:
1) from the Revolution of 1848 to the Paris Commune (1871); 2) from the
Pai-is Commune to the Russian Revolution (1905); 3) since the Russian
Revolution.
Let us see what has been the destiny of Marx's doctrine in each of these
periods.
A,t the beginning of the first period Marx's doctrine by no means domi-
nated t It was only one of the extremely numerous factions or trends of Social-
isflci. The forms of Socialism which did dominate were in the main akin
to/our Narodism: non-comprehension of the materialist basis of historical
rciovement, inability to assign the role and significance of each class in
'capitalist society, concealment of the bourgeois essence of democratic
reforms under diverse, pseudo-socialistic phrases about "the people,"
"justice," "right," etc.
The Revolution of 1848 struck a fatal blow at -all these vociferous,
motley and ostentatious forms of pre- Marxian Socialism. In all countries
the revolution revealed the various classes of society in action. The shoot-
ing down of the workers by the republican bourgeoisie in the June Days of
1848 in Paris finally established that the proletariat alone was Socialist
by nature. The liberal bourgeoisie feared the "independence of this class a
hundred times more than it did any kind of reaction. The craven liberals
grovelled before reaction. The peasantry were content with the aboli-
64
THE HISTORICAL DESTINY OF THE DOCTRINE OF KARL MARX 65
tion of the relics of feudalism and joined the supporters of order, only
wavering at times between workers9 democracy and bourgeois liberalism.
All doctrines of now-class Socialism and non-class politics proved to be
sheer nonsense.
The Paris Commune (1871) completed this development of bourgeois
reforms; the republic, i.e., the form of state organization in which class
relations appear in their most unconcealed form, had only the heroism of the
proletariat to thank for its consolidation.
In all the other European countries a more entangled and less finished
development also led to a definitely shaped bourgeois society. Towards the
end of the first period (1848-71) — a period of storms and revolutions — pre-
Marxian Socialism died away. Independent proletarian parties were born:
the First International (1864-72) and the German Social-Democratic
Party.
II
The second period (1872-1904) was distinguished from the first by its
"peaceful" character, by the absence of re volutions. The West had finished
with bourgeois revolutions. The East had not yet icacled that stage.
The West entered a phase of "peaceful" preparation for the future era
of change. Socialist parties, basically proletarian, were formed everywhere
and learned to make use of bourgeois parliamentarism and to create their
own daily press, their educational institutions, their trade unions and their
co-operative societies. The Marxian doctrine gained a complete victory and
spread. The process of selection and accumulation of the forces of the prole-
tariat and of the preparation of the proletariat for the impending battles
progressed slowly but steadily.
The dialectics of history were such that the theoretical victory of
Marxism obliged its enemies to disguise themselves as Marxists. Liberal-
ism, rotten to the core, attempted a revival in the form of Socialist
opportunism. The opportunists interpreted the period of preparation of forces
for the great battles as a renunciation of these battles. The improvement
of the position of the slaves for the struggle against wage-slavery they
represented as the necessity for the slaves to sell their right to liberty
for a mess of pottage. They pusillanimously preached "social peace"
(i.e., peace with the slave-owners), the renunciation of the class strug-
gle, and so forth. They had many adherents among Socialist members of
parliament, various officials of the labour movement, and the "sympathe-
tic" intellectuals.
5 G8B
66 V. I. LENIN
III
But the opportunists had scarcely congratulated themselves on "social
peace" and the needlessness of storms under "democracy" when a new source
of great world storms opened up in Asia. The Russian revolution was
followed by the Turkish, the Persian and the Chinese revolutions. It is in
this era*of storms and their "repercussion" on Europe that we are now
living. Whatever may be the fate of the great Chinese Republic, against
which the various "civilized" hyenas are now baring their teeth, no power
on earth can restore the old serfdom in Asia, or wipe out the heroic democ-
racy of the masses of the people in the Asiatic and semi- Asiatic countries.
Certain people, who were inattentive to the conditions of prepara-
tion and development of the mass struggle, were driven to despair and to
anarchism by the prolonged postponements of the decisive struggle against
capitalism in Europe. We can now see how short-sighted and pusillanimous
this anarchist despair is.
The fact that Asia, with its population of eight hundred million, has
been drawn into the struggle for these same European ideals should
inspire us with courage and not despair.
The Asiatic revolutions have revealed the same spinelessness and base-
ness of liberalism, the same exceptional importance of the independence of
the democratic masses, and the same sharp line of division between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie of all kinds. After the experience both of
Europe and Asia, whoever now speaks of non-class politics and of non~
class Socialism simply deserves to be put in a cage and exhibited along-
side of the Australian kangaroo.
After Asia, Europe has also begun to stir, although not in the Asiatic
way. The "peaceful" period of 1872-1904 has passed completely, never to
return. The high cost of living and the oppression of the trusts is leading
to an unprecedented accentuation of the economic struggle, which has roused
even the British workers, who have been most corrupted by liberalism.
Before our eyes a political crisis is brewing even in that extreme "diehard,"
bourgeois- Junker country, Germany. Feverish armaments and the poli-
cy of imperialism are turning modern Europe into a "social peace" which
is more like a barrel of gunpowder than anything else. And at the same
time the decay of all the bourgeois parties and the maturing of the prole-
tariat are steadily progressing.
Each of the three great periods of world history since the appearance of
Marxism has brought Marxism new confirmation and new triumphs. But
a still greater triumph awaits Marxism, as the doctrine of the proletariat,
in the period of history that is now opening.
Pravda No. 50,
March 1. 1913
MARXISM AND REVISIONISM
There is a saying that if geometrical axioms affected human interests
attempts would certainly be made to refute them. Theories of the natural
sciences which conflict with the old prejudices of theology provoked,
and still provoke, the most rabid opposition. No wonder, therefore,
that the Marxian doctrine, which directly serves to enlighten and organize
the advanced class in modern society, which indicates the tasks of this
class and which proves the inevitable (by virtue of economic development)
replacement of the present system by a new order — no wonder that this
doctrine had to fight at every step in its course.
There is no need to speak of bourgeois science and philosophy, which
are officially taught by official professors in order to befuddle the rising
generation of the possessing classes and to "coach" it against the internal
and foreign enemy. This science will not even hear of Marxism, declaring
that it has been refuted and annihilated. The young scientists who are
building their careers by refuting Socialism, and the decrepit elders who
preserve the traditions of all the various outworn "systems," attack
Marx with equal zeal. The progress of Marxism and the fact that its ideas
are spreading and taking firm hold among the working class inevitably
tend to increase the frequency and intensity of these bourgeois attacks
on Marxism, which only becomes stronger, more hardened, and more tena-
cious every time it is "annihilated" by official science.
But Marxism by no means consolidated its position immediately even
among doctrines which are connected with the struggle of the working
class and which are current mainly among the proletariat. In the first
half-century of its existence (from the 'forties on) Marxism was engaged in
combating theories fundamentally hostile to it. In the first half of the
'forties Marx and Engels demolished the radical Young Hegelians, who
professed philosophical idealism. At the end of the 'forties the struggle
invaded the domain of economic doctrine, in opposition to Proudhonism.
The 'fifties saw the completion of this struggle: the criticism of the par-
ties and doctrines which manifested themselves in the stormy year of
1848. In the 'sixties the struggle was transferred from the domain of gener-
al theory to a domain closer to the direct labour movement: the ejection
of Bakunism from the International. In the early 'seventies the stage in
5* 67
68 V. I. LENIN
Germany was occupied for a short while by the Proudhonist Miihlberger,
and in the latter 'seventies by the positivist Duhring. But the influence
of both on the proletariat was already absolutely insignificant. Marxism
was already gaining an unquestionable victory over all other ideologies in
the labour movement.
By the 'nineties this victory was in the main completed. Even in the
Latin countries, where the traditions of Proudhonism held their ground
longest ofall, the labour parties actually based their programs and tactics
on a Marxist foundation. The revived international organization of the
labour movement — in the shape of periodical international congresses —
from the outset, and almost without a struggle, adopted theMarxist stand-
point in all essentials. But after Marxism had ousted all the more or less
consistent doctrines hostile to it, the tendencies expressed in those doctrines
began to seek other channels. The forms and motives of the struggle
changed, but the struggle continued. And the second half-century in the
existence of Marxism began (in the 'nineties) with the struggle of a trend
hostile to Marxism within Marxism.
Bernstein, a one-time orthodox Marxist, ga\e his name to this current
by making the most noise and advancing the most integral expression
of the amendments to Marx, the revision of Marx, revisionism. Even in
Russia, where, owing to the economic backwardness of the country and
the preponderance of a peasant population oppressed by the relics of serf-
dom, non-Marxian Socialism has naturally held its ground longest
of all, it is plainly passing into revisionism before our very eyes. Both in
the agrarian question (the program of the municipalization of all land)
and in general questions of program and tactics, our social -Narodniks are
more and more substituting "amendments" to Marx for the moribund and
obsolescent remnants of the old system, which in its own way was integ-
ral and fundamentally hostile to Marxism.
Pre-Marxian Socialism has been smashed. It is now continuing the
struggle not on its own independent soil but on the general soil of Marxism —
as revisionism. Let us, then, examine the ideological content of revisionism.
In the domain of philosophy revisionism clung to the skirts of bour-
geois professorial "science." The professors went "back to Kant" — and
revisionism followed in the wake of the neo-Kantians. The professors re-
peated, for the thousandth time, the threadbare banalities urged by the
priests against philosophical materialism — and the revisionists, smiling
condescendingly, mumbled (word for word after the latest HandbucK)
that materialism had been "refuted" long ago. The professors treated
Hegel as a "dead dog," and while they themselves preached idealism,
only an idealism a thousand times more petty and banal than Hegel's,
they contemptuously shrugged their shoulders at dialectics — and the revi-
sionists floundered after them into the swamp of philosophical vulgariza-
tion of science, replacing "artful" (and revolutionary) dialectics by "sim-
ple" (and tranquil) "evolution." The professors earned their official salaries
MARXISM AND REVISIONISM 0(J
by adjusting both their idealist and "critical" systems to the dominant
mediaeval "philosophy" (/.e., to theology) — and the revisionists drew close
to them and endeavoured to make religion a "private affair," not in rela-
tion to the modern state, but in relation to the party of the advanced class.
What the real class significance of such "amendments" to Marx was
need not be said — it is clear enough. \X'e shall simply note that the only
Marxist in the international Social-Democratic movement who criticized
from the standpoint of consistent dialectical materialism the incredible
banalities uttered by the revisionists was Plekhanov. This must be stressed
all the more emphatically since thoroughly mistaken attempts are being
made in our day to smuggle in the old and reactionary philosophical rub-
bish under the guise of criticizing Plekhanov 's tactical opportunism.*
Passing to political economy, it must be noted first of all that the
"amendments" of the revisionists in this domain were much more compre-
hensive and circumstantial; attempts were made to influence the public
by adducing "new data of economic development." It was said that con-
centration and the ousting of small-scale production by large-scale pro-
duction do not occur in agriculture at all while concentration
proceeds extremely slowly in commerce and industry. It was said that
crises had now become rarer and of less force, and that the cartels
and trusts would probably enable capital to do away with crises alto-
gether. It was said that the "theory of the collapse" to which capitalism
is heading, was unsound, owing to the tendency of class contradictions
to become less acute and milder. It was said, finally, that it would not
be amiss to correct Marx's theory of value in accordance with Bohm-
Bawerk.
The fight against the revisionists on these questions resulted in as fruit-
ful a revival of the theoretical thought of international Socialism as fol-
lowed from Engels' controversy with Duhring twenty years earlier. The
arguments of the revisionists were analysed with the help of facts and
figures. It was proved that the revisionists were systematically presenting
modern small-scale production in a favourable light. The technical and
* See Studies in the l^htlosophy of Mum tun hv Bogdanov, Bazarov and others.
This is not the place to discuss this book, pnd I must at present confine myself
to stating that in the very near future 1 shall show in a series of articles or in
a separate pamphlet that everything I have said in the text about the neo-Kantian
revisionists essentially applies also to these "new" nco-Humist and neo-Berkelcyan
revisionists. (In his Materialism and Kmpirio-Criticifini, [C7. Lenin, Selected Works,
Eng. ed., Vol. XI.] which he wrote shortly after, Lenin subjected "Bogdanov and the
rest of the revisionists, together with their philosophical teachers — Avenarius
andMach — to a withering criticism. This work of Lenin's is a defence of the theo-
retical foundations of Marxism — dialectical and historical materialism, a gen-
eralization from the standpoint of materialism of all the achievements of science,
and of natural science in the first place, as from the time of Engels* death to the
publication of the work in question, and the theoretical preparation for the Bolshe-
vik Party.— Ed.)
70 V. I. LENIN
commercial superiority of large-scale production over small-scale produc-
tion both in industry and in agriculture is proved by irrefutable facts.
But commodity production is far less developed in agriculture, and modern
statisticians and economists are usually not very skilful in picking out
the special branches (sometimes even operations) in agriculture which
indicate that agriculture is being progressively drawn into the exchange
of world economy. Small-scale production maintains itself on the ruins
of natural economy by a steady deterioration in nourishment, by chronic
starvation, by the lengthening of the working day, by the deterioration
in the quality of cattle and in the care given to cattle, in a word, by the
very methods whereby handicraft production maintained itself against
capitalist manufacture. Every advance in science and technology inevita-
bly and relentlessly undermines the foundations of small-scale production
in capitalist society, and it is the task of Socialist economics to inves-
tigate this process in all its — often complicated and intricate — forms and
to demonstrate to the small producer the impossibility of holding his
own under capitalism, the hopelessness of peasant farming under capitalism,
and the necessity of the peasant adopting the standpoint of the proletarian.
On this question the revisionists sinned from the scientific standpoint by
superficially generalizing from facts selected one-sidedly and without
reference to the system of capitalism as a whole; they sinned from
the political standpoint by the fact that they inevitably, whether they
wanted to or not, invited or urged the peasant to adopt the standpoint
of the master (i.e., the standpoint of the bourgeoisie), instead of urging
him to adopt the standpoint of the revolutionary proletarian.
The position of revisionism was even worse as far as the theory of crises
and the theory of collapse were concerned. Only for the shortest space of
time could people, and then only the most shortsighted, think of remodel-
ling the foundations of the Marxian doctrine under the influence of a few
years of industrial boom and prosperity. Facts very soon made it clear to
the revisionists that crises were not a thing of the past: prosperity was
followed by a crisis. The forms, the sequence, the picture of the particular
crises changed, but crises remained an inevitable component of the capital-
ist system. While uniting production, the cartels and trusts at the same
time, and in a way that was obvious to all, aggravated the anarchy of
production, the insecurity of existence of the proletariat and the oppres-
sion of capital, thus intensifying class contradictions to an unprecedented
degree. That capitalism is moving towards collapse — in the sense both
of individual political and economic crises and of the complete wreck of
the entire capitalist system — has been made very clear, and on a very large
scale, precisely by the latest giant trusts. The recent financial crisis in
America and the frightful increase of unemployment all over Europe, to
say nothing of the impending industrial crisis to which many symptoms
are pointing — all this has brought it about that the recent "theories"
of the revisionists are being forgotten by everybody, even, it seems, by
MARXISM AND REVISIONISM 71
many of the revisionists 'themselves. But the lessons which this instability
of the intellectuals has given the working class must not be forgotten.
As to the theory of value, it should only be said that apart from hints
and sighs, exceedingly vague, for Bohm-Bawerk, the revisionists have here
contributed absolutely nothing, and have therefore left no traces whatever
on the development of scientific thought.
In the domain of politics, revisionism tried to revise the very founda-
tion of Marxism, namely, the doctrine of the class struggle. Political free-
dom, democracy and universal suffrage remove the ground for the class
struggle — we were told — and render untrue the old proposition of the
Communist Manifesto that the workers have no country. For, they said,
since the "will of the majority" prevails under democracy, one must
neither regard the state as an organ of class rule, nor reject alliances with
the progressive, social-reformist bourgeoisie against the reactionaries.
It cannot be disputed that these objections of the revisionists consti-
tuted a fairly harmonious system of views, namely, the old and well-
known liberal bourgeois views. The liberals have always said that bour-
geois parliamentarism destroys classes and class divisions, since the right
to vote and the right to participate in state affairs are shared by all citi.
zens without distinction. The whole history of Europe in the second half
of the nineteenth century, and the whole history of the Russian revolu-
tion at the beginning of the twentieth, clearly show how absurd such views
are. Economic distinctions are aggravated and accentuated rather than
mitigated under the freedom of "democratic" capitalism. Parliamentarism
does not remove, but rather lays bare the innate character even of the most
democratic bourgeois republics as organs of class oppression. By helping
to enlighten and to organize immeasurably wider masses of the popula-
tion than those which previously took an active part in political events,
parliamentarism does not make for the elimination of crises and political
revolutions, but for the maximum accentuation of civil war during such
revolutions. The events in Paris in the spring of 1871 and the events in
Russia in the winter of 1905 showed as clear as clear could be how inevitably
this accentuation comes about. The French bourgeoisie without a moment's
hesitation made a deal with the common national enemy, the foreign
army which had ruined its fatherland, in order to crush the proletarian
movement. Whoever does not understand the inevitable inner dialectics of
parliamentarism and bourgeois democracy — which tends to an even more
acute decision of a dispute by mass violence than formerly — will never be
able through parliamentarism to conduct propaganda and agitation that
are consistent in principle and really prepare the working-class masses to
take a victorious part in such "disputes." The experience of alliances, agree-
ments and blocs with the social- reformist liberals in the West and
with the liberal reformists (Constitutional-Democrats) in the Russian
revolution convincingly showed that these agreements only blunt the con-
sciousness of the masses, that they weaken rather than enhance the
72 V. I. LENIN
actual significance of their struggle by linking the fighters with the elements
who are least capable of fighting and who are most vacillating and
treacherous. French Millerandism — the biggest experiment in apply-
ing revisionist political tactics on a wide, a really national scale — has
provided a practical judgement of revisionism which will never be
forgotten by the proletariat all over the world.
A natural complement to the economic and political tendencies of
revisionism was its attitude to the final aim of the Socialist movement.
"The movement is everything, the final aim is nothing" — this catch-
phrase of Bernstein's expresses the substance of revisionism better than
many long arguments. The policy of revisionism consists in determining
its conduct from case to case, in adapting itself to the events of the day
and to the chops and changes of petty politics; it consists in forgetting the
basic interests of the proletariat, the main features of the capitalist sys-
tem as a whole and of capitalist evolution as a whole, and in sacrificing
these basic interests for the real or assumed advantages of the moment.
And it patently follows from the very nature of this policy that it may as-
sume an infinite variety of forms, and that every more or less "new" ques-
tion, every more or less unexpected and unforeseen turn of events, even
though it may change the basic line of development only to an insignifi-
cant degree and only for the shortest period of time, will always inevitably
give rise to one or another variety of revisionism.
The inevitability of revisionism is determined by its class roots in mod-
ern society. Revisionism is an international phenomenon. No more or less
informed and thinking Socialist can have the slightest doubt that the rela-
tion between the orthodox and the Bernsteinites in Germany, the Guesd-
ites and the Jauresites (and now particularly the Broussites) in France,
the Social-Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party
in Great Britain, de Brouckere and Vandervelde in Belgium, the integral-
ists and the reformists in Italy, and the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in
Russia is everywhere essentially similar, notwithstanding the gigantic vari-
ety of national and historically-derived conditions in the present state of
all these countries. In reality, the "division" within the present interna-
tional Socialist movement is now proceeding along one line in all the vari-
ous countries of the world, which testifies to a tremendous advance compared
with thirty or forty years ago, when it was not like tendencies within a
united international Socialist movement that were combating one another
within the various countries. And the "revisionism from the Left"
which has begun to take shape in the Latin countries, such as "revolu-
tionary syndicalism," is also adapting itself to Marxism while "amending"
it; Labriola in Italy and Lagardelle in France frequently appeal from Marx
wrongly understood to Marx rightly understood.
We cannot stop here to analyse the ideological substance of this revi-
sionism; it has not yet by far developed to the extent that opportunist re-
visionism has, it has not yet become international, and it has not yet
MARXISM AND REVISIONISM 73
stood the test of one big practical battle with a Socialist Party even in one
country. We shall therefore confine ourselves to the "revisionism from
the Right" described above.
Wherein lies its inevitability in capitalist society? Why is it more pro-
found than the differences of national peculiarities and degrees of capitalist
development? Because always in every capitalist country, side by side with
the proletariat, there are broad strata of the petty bourgeoisie, small mas-
ters. Capitalism arose and is constantly arising out of small production.
A number of "middle strata" are inevitably created anew by capitalism
(appendages to the factory, homework, and small workshops scattered
all over the country in view of the requirements of big indu tries, such
as the bicycle and automobile industries, etc.). These new small producers
are just as inevitably cast back into the ranks of the proletariat. It is
quite natural that the petty-bourgeois world conception should again and
again crop up in the ranks of the broad labour parties. It is quite natural
that this should be so, and it always will be so right up to the peripety
of the proletarian revolution, for it would be a grave mistake to
think that the "complete" proletarianization of the majority of the popu-
lation is essential before such a revolution can be achieved. What we now
frequently experience only in the domain of ideology — disputes over the-
oretical amendments to Marx — what now crops up in practice only over
individual partial issues of the labour movement as tactical differences
with the revisionists and splits on these grounds, will all unfailingly
have to be experienced by the working class on an incomparably larger
scale when the proletarian revolution accentuates all issues and concen-
trates all differences on points of the most immediate importance in deter-
mining the conduct of the masses, and makes it necessary in the heat of
the fight to distinguish enemies from friends and to cast out bad allies,
so as to be able to deal decisive blows at the enemv.
The ideological struggle waged by revolutionary Marxism against
revisionism at the end of the nineteenth century is but the prelude to the
great revolutionary battles of the proletariat, which is marching forward
to the complete victory of its cause despite all the waverings and weak-
nesses of the petty bourgeoisie.
Originally published in a symposium
entitled In Memory of Karl Marx,
St. Petersburg, 1908
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CREATION
OF A SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC
LABOUR PARTY IN RUSSIA
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE AND
HOW THEY FIGHT THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS
(A RKPL\ TO ARTICLES IN Russkoyc Bogatstvo
OPPOSING THE MARXISTS)
Russkoye Bogatstvo has started a campaign against the Social-Demo-
crats. Last year, in issue No. 10, one of the leading lights of this journal,
Mr. N. Mikhailovsky, announced a forthcoming ""polemic" against "our
so-called Marxists, or Social-Democrats." Then followed an article by
Mr. S. Krivenko entitled "Our Cultural Free Lances" (in No. 12), and
one by Mr. N. Mikhailovsky entitled "Literature and Life" (Riisskoye
Bogatstvo, 1894 Nos. 1 and 2). As to the magazine's own views on
our economic realities, these have been most fully expounded by
Mr. S. Yuzhakov in an article entitled "Problems of the Economic Develop-
ment of Russia" (in Nos. 11 and 12). While in general claiming to pre-
sent in their magazine the ideas and tactics of the true "friends of the
people," these gentlemen are arch-enemies of the Social-Democrats.
So let us examine these "friends of the people," their criticism of Marxism,
their ideas and their tactics.
Mr. N. Mikhailovsky devotes his attention chiefly to the theoretical
principles of Marxism and therefore specially stops to examine the ma-
terialist conception of history. After giving a general outline of the
contents of the voluminous Marxist literature devoted to this doctrine,
Mr. Mikhailovsky launches his criticism with the following tirade:
"First of all," he says, "the question naturally arises: in which
of his works did Marx set forth his materialist conception of his-
tory? In Capital he gave us a model of logical force combined with
erudition and a painstaking investigation both of all the econom-
ic literature and of the pertinent facts. He brought to light theore-
ticians of economic science who had been long forgotten or who
are not known to anybody today, and did not overlook the most
minute details in the reports of factory inspectors or the evidence
given by experts before various special commissions; in a word,
he overhauled an overwhelming amount of factual material, partly
77
78 V. I. LENIN
in order to provide arguments for, and partly to illustrate, his eco-
nomic theories. If he has created a 'completely new' conception
of the historical process, if he has explained the whole past of man-
kind from a new point of view and has summarized all philosophi-
co-historical theories that have hitherto existed, he has of course
done so with equal thoroughness: he has inceed reviewed and sub-
jected to critical analysis all the known theories of the historical
process and analysed a mass of facts of world history. The
comparison with Darwin, so customary in Marxist literature,
serves still more to confirm this idea. What does Darwin's whole
work amount to? Certain closely inter-connected generalizing ideas
crowning a veritable Mont Blanc of factual material. Where is the
corresponding work by Marx? It does not exist. And not only does
no such work by Marx exist, but there is none to be found in all Marx-
ist literature, in spite of its voluminousness and extensiveness."
This whole tirade is highly characteristic and helps us to realize how
little the public understand Capital and Marx. Overwhelmed by the vast
weight and cogency of the exposition, they bow and scrape before
Marx, laud him, and at the same time entirely lose sight of the basic
content of his doctrine and blithely continue to chant the old songs of
"subjective sociology." In this connection one cannot help recalling the
pointed epigraph Kautsky selected for his book on the economic teach-
ings of Marx:
Wer wird nicht einen Klopstock loben?
Doch wird ihn jeder lesen? Nein.
Wir wo lien weniger erhoben
Und fleissiger gelesen sein!*
Just so! Mr. Mikhailovsky should praise Marx less and read him more
diligently, or, better still, put a little more thought into what he is
reading.
"In Capital Marx gave us a model of logical force combined with eru-
dition," says Mr. Mikhailovsky. In this phrase Mr. Mikhailovsky has
given us a model of brilliant phrasemongering combined with absence
of meaning — a certain Marxist observed. And the observation is an en-
tirely just one. For, indeed, how did this logical force of Marx's manifest
itself? What were its effects? ReadingMr. Mikhailovsky 's tirade just quot-
ed one might think that this force was entirely concentrated on "eco-
nomic theories," in the narrowest sense of the term — and nothing more.
And in order still further to emphasize the narrow limits of the field in
which Marx displayed his logical force, Mr. Mikhailovsky lays stress on
* Who would not praise a Klopstock? But will everybody read him? No.
We would like to be exalted less, but read more diligently. (Leasing.) — Ed.
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 79
the "most minute details," on the "pains takingness," on the "theoreti-
cians who are not known to anybody," and so forth. It would appear that
Marx contributed nothing essentially new or noteworthy to the methods
of constructing these theories, that he left the limits of economic science
just as they had been with the earlier economists, not extending them and
not contributing a "completely new" conception of the science itself.
Yet anybody who has read Capital knows that this is absolutely untrue.
In this connection one cannot refrain from recalling what Mr. Mikhailov-
sky wrote about Marx sixteen years ago when arguing with that vulgar
bourgeois, Mr. Y. Zhukovsky. Perhaps the times were different,
perhaps sentiments were fresher — at any rate, the tone and content of
Mr. Mikhailovsky's article was then entirely different .
"' . . . It is the ultimate aim of this work to lay bare the economic law
of development (in the original das okonomische Bewegungsgesetz — the
economic law of motion) of modern society/ KarlMarxsaid in reference
to his Capital, and he adhered to this program with strict consistency."
So said Mr. Mikhailovsky in 1877. Let us more closely examine this pro-
gram, which — as the critic admits — has been adhered to with strict con-
sistency. It is "to lay bare the economic law of development of modern
society."
The very formulation confronts us with several questions that require
elucidation. Why does Marx speak of "modern" society, when all the
economists who preceded him spoke of society in general? In what
sense does he use the word "modern," by what tokens does he distin-
guish this modern society? And further, what is meant by the economic
law of motion of society? We are accustomed to hear from economists —
and this, by the way, is one of the favourite ideas of the publicists and
economists of the milieu to which the Eusskoye Bogatstvo belongs — that
only the production of values is subject to economic laws alone, whereas
distribution, they declare, depends on politics, on the nature of the
influence exercised on society by the government power, the intelligentsia,
and so forth. In what sense, then, does Marx speak of the economic law
of motion of society, even referring to this law as a Naturgesetz — a law
of nature? How is this to be understood, when so many of our native so-
ciologists have covered reams of paper with asseverations to the effect
that the sphere of social phenomena is distinct from the sphere of na-
tural-historical phenomena, and that therefore an absolutely distinct
"subjective method of sociology" must be applied in the investigation
of the former?
These perplexities arise naturally and necessarily, and, of course,
one must be utterly ignorant to evade them when dealing with Capital.
In order to understand these questions, let us first quote one more pas-
sage from the Preface to Capital — only a few lines lower down:
"[From] my standpoint," says Marx, "the evolution of the economic
formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history."
80 V. I. LENIN
One has merely to compare, say, the two passages just quoted from
the Preface in order to see that this is precisely the basic idea of Capital,
which, as we have heard, is pursued, with strict consistency and
with rare logical force. In connection with all this, let us first note two
circumstances: Marx speaks only,, of one "economic formation of society,"
the capitalist formation; that is, he says that he investigated the law
of development of this formation only and of no other. That, in the first
place. Arid in the second place, let us note the methods used by Marx
in working out his deductions. These methods consisted, as we have just
heard from Mr. Mikhailovsky, in a "painstaking investigation ... of the
pertinent facts."
Let us now proceed to examine this basic idea of Capital 9 which our sub-
jective philosopher so adroitly tries to evade. In what, piojrerly sf caking,
does the concept economic formation of society consist, and in what sense
must the development of such a formation be regarded as a process of na-
tural history? — such are the questions that confront us. I have already
pointed out that from the standpoint of the old economists and sociolo-
gists (not old for Russia), the concept economic formation of society is
entirely superfluous: they talk of society in general, they argue with
Spencer and his like about the nature of society in general, about the
aims and essence of society in general, and so forth. In their reason-
ings, these subjective sociologists rely on such arguments as that the
aim of society is to benefit all its members, that therefore justice demands
such and such an organization, and that a system that is out of har-
mony with this ideal organization ("Sociology must start with a uto-
pia" — these words of one of the authors of the subjective method,
Mr. Mikhailovsky, are eminently characteristic of the very essence of their
methods) is abnormal and should be set aside.
"The essential task of sociology," Mr. Mikhailovsky, for in-
stance, argues, "is to ascertain the social conditions under which any
particular requirement of human nature is satisfied."
As you see, this sociologist is interested only in a society that satisfies
human nature, and is not at all interested in social formations — social
formations, moreover, that may be based on phenomena so out of har-
mony with "human nature" as the enslavement of the majority by
the minority. You also see that from the standpoint of this sociolo-
gist there can even be no question of regarding the development of soci-
ety as a process of natural history. ("Having recognized something to
be desirable or undesirable, the sociologist must discover the conditions
whereby the desirable can be realized, or the undesirable eliminated" —
"whereby such and such ideals can be realized" — this same Mr. Mikhai-
lovsky reasons.) Furthermore, there can even be no question of devel-
opment, but only of deviations from the "desirable," of "defects" that
may have occurred in history as a result ... as a result of the fact that
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 81
people were not clever enough, did not properly understand what hu-
man nature' demands, were unable to discover the conditions required
for the realization of such a rational system. It is obvious that
Marx's basic idea that the development of the economic formations of
society is a process of natural history cuts the ground from under this
childish morality which lays claim to the title of sociology. By what
method did Marx arrive at this basic idea? He arrived at it by singling out
from the various spheres of social life the economic sphere, by singling
out from all social relations the relations of production as being
the basic and prime relations that determine all other relations. Marx
himself has described the course of his reasoning on this question as
follows:
"The first work which I undertook for a solution of the doubts
which assailed me was a critical review of the Hegelian philosophy
of law. . . . My investigation led to the result that legal relations
like political forms ... are to be grasped neither from themselves
nor from the so-called general development of the human mind,
but rather have their roots in the material conditions of life, the
sum total of which Hegel, in accordance with the procedure of the
Englishmen and Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, combines
under the name of 'civil society. ' And the anatomy of civil society
is to be sought in political economy. . . . The general result at
which I arrived . . . can be briefly formulated as follows: In the social
production which men.carry on they enter into definite relations . . .
these iclatioris of production correspond to a definite stage of develop-
ment of their material forces of production. The sum total of these
relations of production constitutes the economic structure of so-
ciety— the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political
superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social
consciousness. The mode of production . . . determines the social,
political and intellectual life processes in general. It is not the
consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the con-
trary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At
a certain stage of their development, the . . . forces of production . . .
come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or —
what is but a legal expression for the same thing — with the prop-
erty relations within which they have been at work before. From
forms of development of the forces of production these relations
turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution.
With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense
superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering
such transformations a distinction should always be made between the
material transformation of the economic conditions of production,
which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and
the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic — in short,
€-685
82 V. I. LENIN
ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and
fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what
he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of trans-
formation by its own consciousness; on the contrary this conscious-
ness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material
life, from the existing conflict between the social forces of produc-
tion and the relations of production. ... In broad outlines we
can designate the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern
bourgeois modes of production as so many epochs in the progress,
of the economic formation of society."*
This idea of materialism in sociology was in itself a piece of genius..
Naturally, for the rime being it was only a hypothesis, but it was the
first hypothesis to create the possibility of a strictly scientific approach
to historical and social problems. Hitherto, being unable to descend to
such simple and primary relations as the relations of production, the
sociologists proceeded directly to investigate and study the political
and legal forms. They stumbled on the fact that these forms arise out
of certain ideas held by men in the period in question — and there they
stopped. It appeared as if social relations were established by man con-
sciously. But this deduction, which was fully expressed in the idea of the
Oontrat Social** (traces of which are very noticeable in all systems of
Utopian Socialism), was in complete contradiction to all historical obser-
vations. Never has it been the case, nor is it the case now, that the mem-
bers of society are aware of the sum-total of the social relations in which
they live as something definite and integral, as something pervaded by
some principle. On the contrary, the mass of people adapt themselves to
these relations unconsciously, and are so little aware of them as specific
historical social relations, that. the explanation, for instance, of the rela-
tions of exchange, under which people have lived for centuries, was
discovered only in very recent times. Materialism removed this con-
tradiction by carrying the analysis deeper, to the origin of these social ideas
of man themselves; and its conclusion that the course of ideas depends
on the course of things is the only one compatible with scientific psy-
chology. Moreover, this hypothesis was the first to elevate sociology to
the level of a science from yet another aspect. Hitherto, sociologists had
* Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface. See
Karl Marx, Selected Works, Eng. ed., 1935, Vol. I, pp. 355-57.— Ed.
** Contrat Social — one of the most important of Jean Jacques Rousseau's
works (published in 1762) in which the author expresses the idea that any and
every social system must be the result of a free contract, an agreement between
men. Idealistic in essence the "social contract" theory, advanced as it was in the
eighteenth century, on the eve of the bourgeois revolution in France, played
a revolutionary role inasmuch as it expressed the demand for bourgeois equality,,
the abolition of feudal estate privileges and the establishment of a bourgeois
republic.— -Ed.
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 83
found it difficult to distinguish in the complex network of social
phenomena which phenomena were important and which unimportant
(that is the root of subjectivism in sociology) and had been unable to dis-
cover any objective criterion for such a distinction. Materialism pro-
vided an absolutely objective criterion by singling out the "relations
of production" as the structure of society, and by making it possible
to apply to these relations that general scientific criterion of recurrence
whose applicability to sociology the subjectivists denied. As long as
they confined themselves to ideological social relations (i.e., such as,
before taking shape, pass through man's consciousness*) they were una-
ble to observe jecurrence and regularity in the social phenomena of the
various countries, and their science was at best only a description of
these phenomena, a collection of raw material. The analysis of material so-
cial relations (those, that is, that take shape without passing through man's
consciousness; when exchanging products men enter into relations of
production without even realizing that social relations of production
are involved in the act) made it at once possible to observe iccirrence
and legularity and to generalize the systems of the various countries so
as to arrive at the single fundamental concept: the formation of society. It
was this generalization that alone made it possible to proceed from the
description of social phenomena (and their evaluation from the standpoint
of an ideal) to their strictly scientific analysis, which, let us say by way
of example, singles out what distinguishes one capitalist country from
another and investigates what is common to all of them.
Thirdly and finally, another reason why this hypothesis was the first
to make a scientific sociology possible was that the reduction of social
relations to relations of production, and of the latter to the level of the
forces of production, alone provided a firm basis for the conception that the
development of the formations of society is a process of natural history.
And it goes without saying that without such a view there can be no social
science. (For instance, the subjectivists, although they admitted that
historical phenomena conform to law, were incapable of regarding their
evolution as a process of natural history, precisely because they confined
themselves to the social ideas and aims of man and were unable to
reduce these ideas and aims to material social relations.)
But now Marx, having expressed this hypothesis in the 'forties, set out
to study the factual (nota bene) material. He took one of the economic
formations of society — the system of commodity production — and on
the basis of a vast mass of data (which he studied for no less than twen-
ty-five years) gave a most detailed analysis of the laws governing the
functioning of this formation and its development. This analysis is strict-
ly confined to the relations of production between the members of society:
* We are, of course, referring all the time to the consciousness of "social rela-
tions" and no others.
64 V. I. LENIN
without ever resorting to factors other than relations of production to
explain the matter, Marx makes it possible to discern how the commodity
organization of social economy develops, how it becomes transformed into
the capitalist organization, creating the antagonistic (within the bounds
now of tie relations of prcd action) classes, the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat, how it develops the productivity of social labour, and there-
by introduces an element which comes into irreconcilable contradiction
with the 'foundations of this capitalist organization itself.
Such is the skeleton of Capital. But the whole point of the matter is
that Marx did not content himself with this skeleton, that he did not
confine himself to an "economic theory" in the ordinary sense of the term,
that, while explaining the structure and development of the given for-
mation of society exclusively in terms of relations of production, he nev-
ertheless everywhere and always went on to trace the superstructure
corresponding to these relations of production and clothed the skeleton
in flesh and blood. Capital has enjoyed such tremendous success precisely
because this book of a "German economist" exhibited the whole capi-
talist social formation to the reader as a living thing — with its everyday
aspects, with the actual social manifestation of the antagonism of class-
es inherent in the relations of production, with the bourgeois political
superstructure which preserves the domination of the capitalist class,
with the bourgeois ideas of liberty, equality and so forth, with the bour-
geois family relations. It will now be clear that the comparison with
Darwin is perfectly accurate: Capital is nothing but "certain closely in-
ter-connected generalizing ideas crowning a veritableMont Blanc of factual
material." And if anybody who has tezd Capital has contrned not to no-
tice these generalizing ideas, that is not the fault of Marx, who pointed
to these ideas even in the Preface, as we have seen. And that is not all;
such a comparison is just not only from the external aspect (which for
some unknown reason particularly interests Mr. Mikhailovsky), but
from the internal aspect too. Just as Darwin put an end to the view that
the species of animals and plants are unconnected among themselves,
fortuitous, "created by God" and immutable, and was the first to put
biology on an absolutely scientific basis by establishing the mutability
and succession of species, so Marx put an end to the view that society is
ft mechanical aggregation of individuals, which allows of any kind
of modification at the will of the powers that be (or, what amounts to
the same thing, at the will of society and the government) and which arises
and changes in a fortuitous way, and was the first to put sociology on
ft scientific basis by establishing the concept of the economic formation
of society as the sum- total of given relations of production and by
establishing the fact that the development of these formations is a
process of natural history.
Now — since the appearance of Capital — the materialist conception of
history is no longer a hypothesis, but a scientifically demonstrated propo-
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 85
sition. And until some other attempt is made to give a scientific expla-
nation of the functioning and development of any formation of society —
formation of society, mind yoa, and not the moc e of life of any country
or people, or even class, etc. — anotl er attempt which would be just as
capable as materialism of introducing order into the "pertinent facts" and
of presenting a living picture of a defi lite formation and at the same time
of explaining it in a strictly scientific way, until then the materialist
conception of history will be synonymous with social science. Materialism
is not "primarily a scientific conception of history," as Mr. Mikhailovsky
thinks, but the only scientific conception of history.
And now, can one imagine anything funnier than people who have read
Capital, aid contrheJ not to discover materialism in it! Where is
it? — asks Mr. Mikhailovsky in sincere perplexity.
He read The Communist Manifesto and failed to notice that the expla-
nation it gives of modern systems — legal, political, family, religious and
philosophical — is a materialist one, and that even the criticism of the
Socialist and Communist theories seeks and finds their roots in definite
relations of production.
He read The Poverty of Philosophy and failed to notice that its exam-
ination of Proudbon's sociology is made from the materialist standpoint,
that its criticism of the solution propounded by Proudhon for the most
dive'se historical problems is based on the principles of materialism, and
that the indications given by the author himself as to where the data for
the solution of these problems is to be sought all amount to references to
relations of production.
He read Capital and failed to notice that what he had before him was
a model scientific analysis, in accordance with the materialist method,
of one — the most complex — of the formations c f soc iety, a model recognized
by all and surpassed by none. And here he sits and exercises his mighty
brain over the profound question: "In which of his works did Marx
set forth his materialist conception of history?"
Anybody acquainted with Marx would answer this question by anoth-
er: in which of his works did Marx not set forth his materialist concep-
tion of history? But Mr. Mikhailovsky will most likely learn of Marx's
materialist investigations only when they are classified and properly in-
dexed in some historico-sophistical work of some Kareyev or other un-
der the heading "Economic Materialism."
But what is funniest of all is that Mr. Mikhailovsky accuses Marx
of not having "ie/'ewei [sicl] all the known theories of the historical
process. "That is amusing indeed. Of what did nine- tenths of these theo-
ries consist? Of purely a priori dogmatic, abstract disquisit o-.s on: what
is society? what is progress? and the 1 ke. (I purposely take examples
which are dear to the heart and mind of Mr. Mikhailovsky.) But,
thei these theories are useless because of the very fact that they exist,
they are useless because of their basic methods, because of their
86 V. I. LENIN
utter and unrelieved metaphysics. For, to begin by asking what is society
and what is progress, is to begin from the wrong end. Whence are you
to get your concept of society and progress in general when you have not
studied a single social formation in particular, when you have been
unable even to establish this concept, when you have been unable even
to approach a serious factual investigation, an objective analysis of
social relations of any kind? That is the most obvious earmark of me taphys-
ics, with which every science began: as long as people did not know
how to study the facts, they always invented a priori general theories,
which were always sterile. The metaphysical chemist who did not know how
to investigate the chemical processes themselves would invent a theory about
the nature of the force of chemical affinity. The metaphysical biologist
would talk about the nature of life and the vital force. The metaphysical
psychologist would reason about the nature of the soul. The method itself
was an absurd one. You cannot argue about the soul without having ex-
plained the psychical processes in particular: here progress must consist in
abandoning general theories and philosophical disquisitions about the na-
ture of the soul, and in knowing how to put the study of the facts which cha-
racterize any particular psychical process on a scientific footing. And there-
fore Mr. Mikhailovsky's accusation is exactly as though a metaphysical
psychologist, who all his life has been writing "inquiries" into the nature
of the soul (without precisely knowing the explanation of a single psychi-
cal phenomenon, even the simplest), were to accuse a scientific psycholo-
gist of not having reviewed all the known theories of the soul. He, the
scientific psychologist, has discarded all philosophical theories of the soul
and has set about making a direct study of the material substratum of
psychical phenomena — the nervous processes — and has given, let us say, an
analysis and explanation of such and such psychological processes. And our
metaphysical psychologist reads this work and praises it: the description
of the processes and the study of the facts, he says, are good. But he is
not satisfied. "Pardon me/' he exclaims excitedly, hearing people around
him speak of the absolutely new conception of psychology given by this
scientist, of his special method of scientific psychology: "Pardon me,"
the philosopher cries heatedly, "in what work is this method expounded?
Why, this work contains 'nothing bat facts.' There is no trace in it of a
review of 'all the known philosophical theories of the soul.' This is
not the corresponding work by any means!"
In the same way, of course, neither is Capital the corresponding work
for a metaphysical sociologist who does not observe the sterility of a
priori discussions about the nature of society and who does not understand
that such methods, instead of studying and explaining, only serve to
insinuate into the concept society either the bourgeois ideas of a British
shopkeeper or the philistine Socialist ideals of a Russian democrat — and
nothing more. That is why all these philosophico-historical theories arose
and burst like soap bubbles, being at best but a symptom of the social
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 87
ideas and relations of their time, and not advancing one iota man's un-
derstanding of even a few, but real, social relations (and not such as
"harmonize with human nature"). The gigantic forward stride which Marx
made in this respect consisted precisely in the fact that he discarded all
these discussions about society and progress in general and gave a scien-
tific analysis of one society and of one progress — capitalist society and
capitalist progress. And Mr. Mikhailovsky condemns him for having
begun from the beginning and not from the end, for having begun with
an analysis of the facts and not with final conclusions, with a study of
particular, historically-determined social relations and not with general
theories about the nature of social relations in general! And he asks:
"where is the corresponding work?"O, sapient subjective sociologist!!
If our subjective philosopher had confined himself to expressing his
perplexity as to where, in which work, materialism is proved, that would
not be quite so bad. But, in spite of the fact (and perhaps for the very
reason) that he has nowhere found even an exposition of the materialist
conception of history, let alone a proof of it, he begins to ascribe to this
doctrine claims which it has never made. He quotes a passage from Bios
to the effect that Marx had proclaimed an entirely new conception of
history, and without further ado goes on to declare that this theory claims
that it has "explained to humanity its past," explained "the whole [«ic!!?]
past of mankind," and so on. But this is utterly false! The theory claims
to explain only the capitalist organization of society, and no other. If
the application of materialism to the analysis and explanation of one
social formation yielded such brilliant results, it is quite natural that
materialism in history already ceases to be a mere hypothesis and
becomes a scientifically tested theory; it is quite natural that the necessity
for such a method should extend to the other social formations, even
though they have not been subjected to special factual investigation
and to detailed analysis — just as the idea of transformism, which has
been proved in relation to a sufficiently large number of facts, is extended
to the whole lealm of biology, even though it has not yet been possible
definitely to establish the transformation of certain species of animals
and plants. And just as transformism does not claim to have explained
the "whole" history of the formation of species, but only to have placed
the methods of this explanation on a scientific basis, so materialism
in history has never claimed to explain everything, but only to have
pointed out the "only scientific," to use Marx's expression (Capital),
method of explaining history. One may therefore judge how ingenious,
earnest or seemly are the methods of controversy employed by Mr. Mi-
khailovsky when he first falsifies Marx by ascribing to materialism in
history the absurd claim of "explaining everything," of finding "the key
to all historical locks" (claims, of course, which were refuted by Marx
immediately and in a very venomous form in his "Letter" on Mikhai-
lovsky's articles), then makes game of these claims, which he himself
88 V. I. LENIN
invented, and, finally, accurately quoting Engels' ideas — accurately,
because in this case a quotation and not a paraphrase is given — to
the effect that political economy as the materialists understand it
"has still to be created" and that "everything we have received from it
is confined to" the history of capitalist society — comes to the conclu-
sion that "these words greatly narrow the scope of economic material-
ism"! What infinite naivete, or what infinite conceit a man must have
to believe that such tricks will pass unnoticed! He first falsifies
Marx, then makes game of his own inventions, then accurately
quotes certain ideas — and has the insolence to declare that the latter
narrow the scope of economic materialism!
The nature and quality of Mr. Mikhailovsky 's game may be seen from
the following example: "Marx nowhere proves them" — i.e., the founda-
tions of the theory of economic materialism — says Mr. Mikhailovsky.
"True, Marx and Engels thought of writing a work of a philosophico-
historical and historico-philosophical character, and even did write one
(1845-46), but it was never printed. Engels says: 'The completed portion
[of this work] consists of an exposition of the materialist conception of
history which proves only how incomplete our knowledge of economic
history was at that time.'* Thus," concludes Mr. Mikhailovsky, "the
fundamental points of 'scientific Socialism* and of the theory of economic
materialism were discovered, and were then expounded in the Manifesto*
at a time when, as is admitted by one of the authors himself, their
knowledge for such a work was still meagre."
A charming manner of criticism, is it not? Engels says that their
knowledge of economic "history" was still meagre and that for this rea-
son they did not print their work of a "general" historico-philosophical
character. Mr. Mikhailovsky garbles this to mean that their know ledge was
meagre "for such a work" as the elaboration of "the fundamental points
of scientific Socialism, that is, of a scientific criticism of the "bour-
geois" system, already given in the Manifesto. One or the other:
either Mr. Mikhailovsky cannot grasp the difference between an attempt
to embrace the whole philosophy of history, and an attempt
to explain the bourgeois regime scientifically, or he thinks that Marx
and Engels did not possess sufficient knowledge for a criticism of politi-
cal economy. And in the latter case it is very cruel of him not to acquaint
us with his reasons for assuming this deficiency of knowledge, and not
to give his amendments and additions. Marx's and Engels' decision not
to publish the historico-philosophical work and to concentrate their efforts
on a scientific analysis of one social organization only indicates a very
high degree of scientific scrupulousness. Mr. Mikhailovsky's decision
to make game of this by a little addition to the effect that Marx and Engels
* See Frederick Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, Foreword, Eng. ed., 1934. — Ed*
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 8^
expounded their views when they themselves confessed that their knowl-
edge was inadequate to elaborate them, is only indicative of methods of
controversy which testify neither to intelligence nor to a sense of decency.
Here is another example:
"More was done by Marx's alter ego, Engels," says Mr. Mikhailovsky,,
"to prove economic materialism as a theory of history. He has written
a special historical work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and
the State in the Light of (im Anschluss) Ihe Resea ches of Mor^aw. This
Anschluss is noteworthy. The book of the American Morgan appeared
many years after Marx and Engels had announced the principles of
economic materialism and entitely independently of the latter." And so,
we find "the economic materialists associating themselves" with this book;
and, since there was no struggle of classes in pre-historic times, introduc-
ing an "amendment" to the formula of the materialist conception of
history to the effect that, in addition to the production of material
values, a determining factor is the production of man himself, i.e.,
procreation, which played a primary role in the primitive era, when
the productivity of labour was still very undeveloped.
Engels says that **Mo'g an 's great merit lies in laving d;scovered in
the gioafs basel 01 sex of tl e No.th /me Lai Ind a s t1 e key to the
most ;m~o ta .t, hithe to insoluble, riddles of the ea.l.est Gieek, Roman
and Ge mai history."
"And so," pronounces Mr. Mikhailovsky in this connection,
"at the end of the 'forties there was discovered and proclaimed
an absolutely new, materialist and truly scientific conception of
history, which did for historical science what Darwin's theory
did for modern natural science."
But this conception — Mr. Mikhailovsky once more repeats — was nev-
er scientifically proved.
"It was not only never tested in a large and varied field of fac-
tual material [Capital is "not the corresponding" work: it contains
only facts and painstaking in esti^at o s!], but was not even suffici-
ently justified, if only by the criticism and exclusion of other
philosophico-his tor ical s ys tems . "
Engels' book — Herrn E. D ihrings Umwalzung der Wissenschaft* — rep-
resents "only clever attempts made in passing," and Mr. Mikhailovsky
therefore considers it possible com let el y to igno e the vast number of
essential questions dealt with in that work, in spite of the fact that these
"clever attempts" very cleverly show the emptiness of sociologies which
"sta t with Utopias," and in spite of the fact that this book contains a de-
tailed criticism of the "force theory," which asserts that political and legal
•flerr Eugen D&hring's Revolution in Science (Anti-Dtihring). — Ed.
IX) V. I. LENIN
systems determine economic systems and which is so fervently professed
by the journalistic gentlemen of Ruaskoye Bogatstvo. Of course, it is
much easier to say a few meaningless phrases about a work than to
make a serious analysis of even one question materialistically dealt with
in it. And it is also safe — for the censor will probably never pass a trans-
lation of the book, and Mr. Mikhailovsky may call it clever without any
danger to* his subjective philosophy.
Even more characteristic and edifying is his comment on Marx's
Capital (a comment which serves as an illustration to the saying that
man was given a tongue to conceal his thoughts — or to lend vacuity
the form of thought):
"There are brilliant pages of history in Capital, BUT [that
wonderful "but"! It is not so much a "but," as that famous mais9
which translated means "the poor fellow can only do his
best"], by the very purpose of the book, they concern only
one definite historical period; they do not so much affirm the basic
propositions of economic materialism as simply deal with the eco-
nomic aspect of a certain group of historical phenomena."
In other words, Capital — which is devoted only to a study of capital-
ist society — gives a materialist analysis of that society and its superstruc-
tures, "BUT"Mt. Mikhailovsky prefers to say nothing about this analys-
is. It deals, don't you see, with only "one" period, whereas he,
Mr. Mikhailovsky, wants to embrace all periods, and embrace them in such
a way as not to say anything about any one of them in particular. Of
course, this aim — of embracing all periods without discussing any one
of them in substance — can be achieved only in one way — by general talk
and "brilliant" but empty phrasemongering. And nobody can compare with
Mr. Mikhailovsky in the art of phrasemongering. It turns out that it is
not worth dealing (separately) with the substance of Marx's investigations
for the reason that he, Marx, "not so much affirms the basic propositions
of economic materialism as simply deals with the economic aspect of a
•certain group of historical phenomena." What profundity! He "does
not affirm," but "simply deals with!" How easy it is to dodge any
issue by phrasemongering! For instance, whe a Marx repeatedly shows that
-civil equality, free contract and similar foundations of the law-gov-
erned state rest on the relations of commodity producers — what is
that? Does he thereby affirm materialism, or "simply" deal with it?
With his inherent modesty, our philosopher refrains from giving a reply
on the substance of the question and directly proceeds to draw conclusions
from his "clever attempts" to talk brilliantly and say nothing.
"It is not surprising," the conclusion runs, "that for a theory
which claimed to elucidate world history, forty years after its
announcement early Greek, Roman and German history remained
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 91
unsolved riddles; and the key to these riddles was provided, firstly,
by a man who had absolutely no connection with the theory of
economic materialism and knew nothing about it, and, secondly,
with the help of a factor which was not economic. A rather amusing
impression is produced by the term 'production of man himself,'
i.e., procreation, on which Engels seizes in order to preserve at
least a verbal connection with the basic formula of economic mate-
rialism. He was, however, obliged to admit that for many ages
the life of mankind did not proceed in accordance with this
formula."
Indeed, Mr. Mikhailovsky, the way you argue is very "surprising."
The theory was that in order to "elucidate" history one must seek
for the foundations in material social relations and not in ideological
relations. Lack of factual material made it impossible to apply this
method to an analysis of certain very important phenomena in ancient
European history — for instance, of the gentile organization — which
in consequence remained a riddle. * But along comes Morgan in America
and the wealth of material he has collected enables him to analyse
the nature of the gentile organization; and he comes to the conclusion that
one must seek for its explanation in material relations, and not in ideo-
logical relations (e.g., legal or religious). Obviously, this fact is a brilliant
confirmation of the materialist method, and nothing more. And when
Mr. Mikhailovsky rebukes this doctrine on the grounds, firstly, that the
key to most difficult historical riddles was found by a man "who had abso-
lutely no connection" with the theory of economic materialism, one can
only wonder at the extent to which people can fail to distinguish what
speaks in their favour from what cruelly demDlishes them. Secondly —
our philosopher argues — procreation is not an economic factor. But where
have you read in Marx or in Engels that they necessarily spoke of eco-
nomic materialism? When they described their world outlook they called
it simply materialism. Their basic idea (which was quite definitely
expressed, for instance, in the passage from Marx above quoted) was that
social relations are divided into material relations and ideological re-
lations. The latter merely constitute a superstructure on the former,
which arise apart from the volition and consciousness of man as (a result)
a form of man's activity aiming at the preservation of his existence.
The explanation of political and legal forms — Marx says in the passage
quoted — must be sought for in "the material conditions of life."
Mr. Mikhailovsky surely does not think that the relations of procreation
* Here too Mr. Mikhailovsky does not miss an opportunity of making
game: how is that — a scientific conception of history, and yet ancient history
remains a riddle I Mr. Mikhailovsky, take any textbook and you will find that
the problem of the gentile organization is one of the most difficult, and a host of
theories have been advanced to explain it.
S2 V. I. LENIN
mre ideological conditions? The explanation given by Mr. Mikhailovsky
in this connection is so characteristic that it deserves to be dwelt on.
"However much we exercise our ingenuity on the question of
'procreation,'" he says, "and endeavour to establish if only a ver-
bal connection between it and economic materialism, however
much it may be interwoven in the complex web of phenomena of
social life with other phenomena, including economic, it has its
own physiological and psychical roots. [Is it suckling infants
you are telling, Mr. Mikhailovsky, that procreation has physio-
logical roots!? What sort of blarney is this?] And this reminds
us that the theoreticians of economic materialism have not
settled accounts not only with history, but also with psycho-
logy. There can be no doubt that gentile ties have lost their signifi-
cance in the history of civilized countries, but this can hardly be
said with the same assurance of direct sexual and family ties. They
have of course undergone considerable modification under the
pressure of the increasing complexity of life in general, but with a
certain amount of dialectical dexterity it might be shown that not
only legal, but also economic relations themselves constitute a 'super-
structure' on sexual and family relations. We shall not dwell on this,
but nevertheless would point to the institution of inheritance."
At last our philosopher has managed to leave the sphere of empty
phrasemongering* for facts, definite facts, which can be verified
and which make it less easy to "blarney" about the substance of the mat-
ter. Let us then see how our critic of Marx shows that the institution
of inheritance is a superstucture on sexual and family relations.
"It is the products of economic production ["the products of
economic production" 1 1 How literary 1 How euphonious! How ele-
gant!] that are transmitted by inheritance, and the institution of
inheritance itself is to a certain extent determined by the fact
of economic competition. But, firstly, non-material values are
also transmitted by inheritance — as expressed in the concern to
bring up children in the spirit of their fathers."
And so the upbringing of children is part of the institution of inheri-
tance! The Russian Civil Code for example, contains a clause to the effect
that "parents must endeavour by home upbringing to train their [i.e.,
their children's] morals and to further the views of the government. "
Is this what our philosopher calls the institution of inheritance? —
* How else, indeed, can one characterize it, when he accuses materialists
of not having settled accounts with history but does not attempt to examine liter-
ally a single one of the numerous materialist explanations of various historical
questions given by the materialists, or when he says that a thing might be shown,
but that he will not dwell on it?
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 93
"and, secondly, even when we confine ourselves to the econom*
ic sphere, if the institution of inheritance is unthinkable without
the products of production that are transmitted by inheritance, it
is just as unthinkable without the products of 'procreation' —
without them and without that complex and intense psychology
which directly borders on them."
(Do pay attention to the style: a complex psychology "borders on"
the products of procreation! That is really exquisite!) And so the insti-
tution of inheritance is a superstructure on family and sexual relations,
because inheritance is unthinkable without procreation! Why, this is
a veritable discovery of America! Until now everybody believed that
procreation can explain the institution of inheritance just as little as
the necessity for taking food can explain the institution of property.
Until now everybody thought that if, for instance, in the era when
the system of teiuie in fee (pomestiye) flourished in Russia, the land was
not transmissible by inheritance (because it was only regarded as condi-
tional property), the explanation was to be sought in the peculiarities of
the social organization of the time. Mr. Mikhailovsky presumably thinks
that the matter is to be explained simply by the fact that the psychology
which bordered on the products of procreation of the fief -holder of that
time was distinguished by insufficient complexity.
(Scratch the "friend of the people" — one might say, paraphrasing the fa-
miliar saying — and you will find a bourgeois. For what other meaning
can be attached to Mr. Mikhailovsky 's reflections on the connection
between the institution of inheritance and the upbringing of children,
the psychology of procreation, and so on, except that the institution of
inheritance is just as eternal, essential and sacred as the upbringing of
children? True, Mr. Mikhailovsky tried to leave himself a loophole by
declaring that "the institution of inheritance is to a certain extent deter-
mined by the fact of economic competition." But that is nothing but an
attempt to avoid giving a definite answer to the quest ion, and an unseemly
attempt at that. How can we take cognizance of this statement when not
a word is said about what exactly the "certain extent" is to which inher-
itance depends on competition, when absolutely no explanation is
given of what exactly this connection between competition and the insti-
tution of inheritance is due to? As a matter of fact, the institution of in-
heritance already presumes the existence of private property; and the latter
arises only with the appearance of exchange. Its basis in the already
incipient specialization of social labour and the alienation of products in
the market. For instance, as long as all the members of the primitive
Indian community produced in common all the articles they required,
private property was impossible. But when division of labour made its way
into the community and each of its members began to produce separately
some one article or other and to sell it in the market, this material iso-
94 V. I. LENIN
lation of the commodity producer found expression in the institution
bf private property. Both private property and inheritance are categor-
ies of a social order in which separate, small (monogamous) families have
already arisen and exchange has begun to develop. Mr. Mikhailovsky 's
example proves precisely the opposite of what he wanted to prove.
Mr. Mikhailovsky gives another factual reference — and this too is in
its way 'a gem!
"As regards gentile ties," he says, continuing to put material-
ism right, "they paled in the history of civilized peoples partially ,,
it is true, under the rays of the influence of the forms of production
[another subterfuge, this time more obvious still. What forms of
production precisely? An empty phrase!], but partially they became
dissolved in their own continuation and generalization — in na-
tional ties."
And so, national ties are a continuation and generalization of gentile
ties! Mr. Mikhailovsky, evidently, borrows his ideas of the history of
society from the fairy tale that is taught to schoolboys. The history
of society — this copy-book maxim runs — is that first there was the
family, that nucleus of all society,* then the family grew into the
tribe, and the tribe grew into the state. If Mr. Mikhailovsky impressively
repeats this childish nonsense, it only goes to show — apart from every-
thing else — that he has not the slightest inkling of the course even of
Russian history. While one might speak of gentile life in ancient Russia,
there can be no doubt that by the Middle Ages, the era of the Muscovite
tsars, these gentile ties no longer existed, that is to say, the state was based
on territorial unions and not gentile unions: the landlords and the monas-
teries took their peasants from various localities, and the communities
thus formed were purely territorial unions. However, one could hardly at
that time speak of national ties in the true sense of the word: the state was
divided into separate "territories," sometimes even principalities, which
preserved strong traces of former autonomy, peculiarities of administra-
tion, at times their own troops (the local boyars went to war at the head
of their own companies), their own customs frontiers, and so forth. It
is only the modern period of Russian history (beginning approximately
with the seventeenth century) that is marked by an actual amalgamation
of all such regions, territories and principalities into a single whole-
This amalgamation, most esteemed Mr. Mikhailovsky, was not brought
about by gentile ties, nor even by their continuation, and generalization,
but by the growth of exchange between regions, the steady growth of
commodity circulation and the concentration of the small local markets
* This is a purely bourgeois idea: separate, small families came to predominate
only under the bourgeois regime; they were entirely non-existent in prehistoric
times. Nothing is more characteristic of the bourgeois than the ascription of the
features of the modern system to all times and peoples.
WHAT THE "FRIENDS os THE PEOPLE" ARE 9fr
into a single, all- Russian market. Since the leaders and masters of this
process were the merchant capitalists, the creation of these national ties
was nothing but the creation of bourgeois ties. By both his factual refer-
ences Mr. Mikhailovsky has only defeated his own purpose and has given
us nothing but examples of bourgeois puerility. "Puerility," because
he explained the institution of inheritance by procreation and its psy-
chology, and nationality by gentile ties; "bourgeois," because he took the
categories and superstructures of one historically-defined social formation
(that based on exchange) for categories just as general and eternal as.
the upbringing of children and "direct" sexual ties.
What is so highly characteristic here is that as soon as our subjective
philosopher tried to pass from phrasemongering to concrete facts he got
himself into a mess. And apparently he feels very much at ease in
this not over-clean position: there he sits, preening himself and splash-
ing mud all around him. For instance, he wants to refute the thesis that
history is a succession of episodes of the class struggle, and, declaring
with an air of profundity that this is "extreme," he says: "The Inter-
national Workingmen's Association, formed by Marx and organized for
the purposes of the class struggle, did not prevent the French and
German workers from cutting each other 's throats and despoiling each
other," which, he asserts, proves that materialism has not settled accounts
"with the demon of national vanity and national hatred." Such a state-
ment reveals the critic's utter failuie to realize that the very real interests
of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie constitute the principal
basis for this hatred, and that to speak of national sentiment as an inde-
pendent factor is only to gloss over the real facts of the case. But then
we have already seen what a profound idea of nationality our philosopher
has. Mr. Mikhailovsky cannot refer to the International except with the
irony of a Burenin.*
"Marx is the head of the International Workingmen's Asso-
ciation, which, it is true, has fallen to pieces, but is due to be
resurrected."
Of course, if one discerns the nee plus ultra of international solidarity
in a system of "just" exchange, as the chronicler of home affairs in No. 2
of Russkoye Bogatstvo asserts, with philistine banality and if one does
not understand that exchange, just and unjust, invariably presumes and
includes the domination of the bourgeoisie, and that, unless the econom-
ic organization which is based on exchange is destroyed, international
collisions are inevitable, this incessant sneering at the International is-
* V. Burenin — a member of the staff of the reactionary newspaper Novoye
Vremya (New Times) notorious for his malignant and vicious attacks on repre-
sentatives of all progressive trends of social thought. Lenin applies this name
appallatively to denote unscrupulous methods in conducting polemics. — Ed*
96 V. L LENIN
understandable. It is then understandable why Mr. Mikhailovsky cannot
grasp the simple truth that there is no other way of combating national
hatred than by organizing and welding together the oppressed class for a
struggle against the oppressor class in each se;arate country, and by
the amalgamation of such national working-class organizations into
a single international working-class army to fi^ht international cap-
ital. As to the statement that the International did not prevent the workers
from cutting each others' throats, it is enough to remind Mr. Mikhai-
lovsky of the events of the Commune, which revealed the true attitude of
the organized proletariat to the ruling classes who were waging the war.
But what is most disgusting in Mr. Mikhailovsky Js polemic is the meth-
ods he employs. If he is dissatisfied with the tactics of the Internation-
al, if he does not share the ideas on behalf of which the European work-
ers are organizing, let him at least criticize them bluntly and openly
and set forth his own idea of what would be more expedient tactics and
more correct views. As it is, no definite and clear objections are made,
and all we get are senseless jibes amidst a welter of phrasemongering.
What can one call this but mad, especially when one bears in mind that
a defence of the ideas and tactics of the International is not legally al-
lowed in Russia? Such too are the methods Mr. Mikhailovsky employs
when he argues against the Russian Marxists: without giving himself
the trouble to formulate any of their theses conscientiously and accurately,
so as to Sab'e_t them to direct and definite criticism, he prefers to fasten
on fragments of Marxist arguments he happens to have heard and to
garble them. Judge for yourselves:
"Marx was too intelligent and too learned to think that it was he
who discovered the idea of the historical necessity of social phenom-
ena and their conformity to law. . . . The lower rungs [of the
Marxist ladder*] do not know this [that "the idea of historical
necessity is not something new, invented or discovered by Marx,
but a long- established truth"], or, at least, they have only a vague
idea of the centuries of intellectual effort and energy that were spent
on the establishment of this truth."
Of course, statements of this kind may very well make an impression
on people who hear of Marxism for the first time, and in their case
the aim of the critic may be easily achieved, namely, to gaible, scoff
and "conquer" (such, it is said, is the way contributors to Eusskoye
* In connection with this meaningless term it should be stated that Mr. Mi-
khailovsky singles out Marx (who is too intelligent and too learned — for our critic
to be able to criticise any of his propositions directly and openly), after whom
he places Engels ("not such a creative mind"), next more or less independent
men like Kautsky — and then the other Marxists. Well, can such a classification
have any serious value? If the critic is dissatisfied with the popularizers of Marx,
what prevents him from correcting them on the basis of Marx? He does nothing
of the kind. He evidently meant to be witty — but it fell flat.
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 9?
Bogatstvo speakofMr.Mikhailovsky 's articles). Anybody who has any know-
ledge of Marx at all will immediately perceive the utter falsity and sham
of such methods. One may not agree with Marx, but one cannot deny that
those of his views which constitute "something new" in relation to those
of the earlier Socialists he did formulate very definitely. The something
new consisted in the fact that the earlier Socialists thought it was
enough to prove their views to point to the oppression of the masses
under the existing regime, to point to the superiority of a system under
which every man would receive what he himself had produced, to point
out that this ideal system harmonizes with "human nature," with
the conception of a rational and moral life, and so forth. Marx found it
impossible to rest content with such a Socialism. He did not confine
himself to describing the existing system, giving a judgment of it and
condemning it; he gave a scientific explanation of it, reducing that exist-
ing system, which differs in the different European and non-European
countries, to a common basis — the capitalist social formation, the laws
of the functioning and development of which he subjected to an objec-
tive analysis (he showed the necessity of exploitation under such a system).
In just the same way, he did not find it possible to rest content with
asserting that only the Socialist system harmonizes with human nature,
as was claimed by the great Utopian Socialists and by their wretched off-
spring, the subjective sociologists. By this same objective analysis of the
capitalist system, he proved the necessity of its transformation into the
Socialist system. (Precisely how he proved this and how Mr. Mikhailov-
sky objected to it is a question we shall revert to.) That is the
source of those references to necessity which we may frequently meet
with among Marxists. The distortion which Mr. Mikhailovsky introduced
into the question is obvious: he dropped the whole factual content of the
theory, its whole essence, and presented the matter as though the whole the-
ory were contained in the one word "necessity" ("one cannot refer to it alone
in complex practical affairs"), as though the proof of this theory consists in
the fact that historical necessity so demands it. In other words, saying
nothing about the contents of the doctrine, he seized on its label only,
and again started to make game of that "simple flat disc," into which
he himself had tried so hard to transform Marx's teaching. We shall not,
of course, endeavour to follow this game, because we are already suffi-
ciently acquainted with that sort of thing. Let him cut capers for the
amusement and satisfaction of Mr. Burenin (who not without good rea-
son patted Mr. Mikhailovsky on the back in Novoye Vremya), let him pay
his respects to Marx and then yelp at him from round the corner: "His
controversy against the Utopians and idealists is one-sided as it is," that
is without the Marxists repeating its arguments. We cannot call such
sallies anything else but yelping, because he literally does not bring
a single factual, definite and verifiable objection against this controversy,
so that, willing as we might be to discuss the subject, — for we con-
7—685
98 V. I. LENIN
sider this controversy extremely important for the settlement of Russian
Socialist questions — we simply cannot reply to yelping, and can only
shrug our shoulders and say:
"The lapdog must be strong indeed if at an elephant he barks!"
Not without interest is what Mr. Mikhailovsky goes on to say
about historical necessity, because it reveals, if only partially, the
real ideological stock-in-trade of "our well-known sociologist" (the epi-
thet which Mr. Mikhailovsky, equally with Mr. V. V.,* enjoys among
the liberal members of "cultured society"). He speaks of "the con-
flict between the idea of historical necessity and the importance of in-
dividual activity": socially active figures err in regarding themselves
as active figures, when as a matter of fact they are "activated," "mario-
nettes, manipulated from a mysterious cellar by the immanent laws of
historical necessity" — such, he claims, is the conclusion to be drawn from
this idea, which he therefore characterizes as "sterile" and "diffuse."
Probably not every reader knows where Mr. Mikhailovsky got all this
nonsense about marionettes and the like. The fact is that this is one of
.the favourite hobby-horses of the subjective philosopher — the idea of the
conflict between determinism and morality, between historical necessity
and the importance of the individual. He has filled piles of paper on the
subject and has uttered an infinite amount of sentimental, philistine
trash in order to settle this conflict in favour of morality and the impor-
tance of the individual. As a matter of fact, there is no conflict here at
all; it has been invented by Mr. Mikhailovsky, who feared (not without
reason) that determinism would cut the ground from under the philistine
morality he loves so dearly. The idea of determinism, which establishes the
necessity of human acts and rejects the absurd fable of freedom of will,
in no way destroys man's reason or conscience, or judgment of his
actions. Quite the contrary, the determinist view alone makes a strict and
correct judgment possible, instead of attributing everything one fancies
to freedom of will. Similarly, the idea of historical necessity in no way
undermines the role of the individual in history: all history is made up
,of the actions of individuals, who are undoubtedly active figures. The real
question that arises in judging the social activity of an individual is:
what conditions ensure the success of this activity, what guarantee is
-there that this activity will not remain an isolated act lost in a welter
of contrary acts? This also involves a question which is answered differ-
ently by Social-Democrats and by the other Russian Socialists, namely,
in what way must activity which aims at bringing about the
Socialist system enlist the masses in order to secure real results? Obvious-
ly, the answer to this question depends directly and immediately on the
conception of the grouping of social forces in Russia, of the class struggle
which forms the substance of Russian actualities. And here too Mr. Mi-
* V. P. Votont&ov.—Ed.
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 9»
khailovsky dances around the question without even attempting to state
it precisely and to furnish an answer to it. The Social-Democratic answer
to the question, as we know, is based on the view that the Russian eco-
nomic system is a bourgeois society, from which there can be only one
way out, one that necessarily follows from the very nature of the bourgeois
system, namely, the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoi-
sie. It is obvious that any serious criticism ought to be directed either
against the view that our system is a bourgeois system or against the
conception of the nature of this system and the laws of its development.
But Mr. Mikhailovsky does not even think of dealing with serious ques-
tions. He prefers to confine himself to meaningless phrasemongering about
necessity being too general a parenthesis, and the like. Yes, Mr. Mikhai-
lovsky, any idea will be too general a parenthesis if you first take all the
insides out of it, as though it were a dried herring, and then begin to play
about with the skin. This outer skin, which covers really serious and burning
questions of the day, is Mr. Mikhailovsky 's favourite sphere; for instance,
he stresses with particular pride the fact that "economic materialism
ignores or throws a wrong light on the question of heroes and the crowd,"
Don't you see, the question — which are the classes whose struggle forms the
substance of modern Russian actualities, and on what grounds? — is probably
too general for Mr. Mikhailovsky, and he avoids it. On the other hand,
the question — what relations exist between the hero and the crowd? —
irrespective of whether it is a crowd of workers, peas ants, manufacturers or
landlords, is one that interests him extremely. These questions may
be really "interesting," but anybody who rebukes the materialists
for directing all their efforts to the settlement of questions which directly
concern the liberation of the labouring class is an admirer of philistine
science, and nothing more. Concluding his "criticism" (?) of material-
ism, Mr. Mikhailovsky makes one more attempt to misrepresent facts
and performs one more manipulation. Having expressed doubt as to the
correctness of Engels ' opinion that Capital was hushed up by the official
economists (a doubt he justifies on the curious grounds that there are nu-
merous universities in Germany!), Mr. Mikhailovsky says:
"Marx did not have this circle of readers [workers] in view,
but expected something from men of science too."
That is absolutely untrue. Marx understood very well how little he
could expect impartiality and scientific criticism from the bourgeois
scientist, and in the Nachwort (Postscript) to the second edition of
Capital he expressed himself very positively on this score. He there says;
"The understanding which Capital rapidly met with among
wide circles of the German working class is the best reward for
my labour. Herr Meyer, a man who on economic questions adheres
to the bourgeois standpoint, aptly stated in a pamphlet which
7*
WO V. I. LENIN
appeared during the Franco- Prussian War that the great capacity
for theoretical thinking (der grofte theoretiache Sinn) which was
regarded as the heritage of the Germans has completely disappeared
among the so-called educated classes of Germany, but, on the other
hand, is being born anew in her working class."
The manipulation again concerns materialism and is entirely in the
style of trie first sample. "The theory [of materialism] has never been
scientifically proved and verified." Such is the thesis. Here is the proof:
"Individual good pages of historical content in Engels, Kaut-
sky and certain others also (as in the esteemed work of Bios)
might well dispense with label economic materialism, since [note
the "since"!], in fact [sic\]9 they take the sum-total of social life into
account, even though the economic strings predominate in the chord."
And the conclusion — "Economic materialism has not justified it-
self in science."
. A familiar trick! In order to prove that the theory lacks foundation,
Mr. Mikhailovsky first distorts it by ascribing to it the absurd inten-
tion of not taking the sum-total of social life into account, whereas quite
the opposite is the case: the materialists (Marxists) were the first Social-
ists to insist on the need of analysing all aspects of social life, and not
&nly the economic.* Then he declares that "in fact" the materialists
have "effectively" explained the sum-total of social life by economics (a fact
which obviously destroys the author) — and finally he comes to the con-
clusion that materialism "has not justified itself"! But your manipulations
on the other hand, Mr. Mikhailovsky, have justified themselves magnifi-
cently!
And this is all that Mr. Mikhailovsky brings forward in "refutation"
of materialism. I repeat, there is no criticism here, it is nothing but vapid
and pretentious verbosity. If we were to ask any person what objections Mr.
* This has been quite clearly expressed in Capital and in the tactics of
the Social-Democrats, as compared with the earlier Socialists. Marx directly
demanded that we should not confine ourselves to the economic aspect. In 1843,
when drafting the program for a projected magazine, Marx wrote to Ruge: "The
whole Socialist principle is again only one aspect.... We, on our part, must
devote equal attention to the other aspect, the theoretical existence of man, and
consequently must make religion, science, and so forth, an object of our criti-
cism...* Just as religion represents a table of contents of the theoretical conflicts
of mankind, the political state represents a table of contents of its practical con-
flicts. Thus, the political state, within the limits of its form, expresses sub specie
rei publicae [from the political standpoint] all social conflicts, needs and inter-
ests. Hence to make a most special political question — e. 0., the difference between
the estate system and the representative system — an object of criticism by no
means implies descend ing from the hauteur des principes [the height of principles —
Ed.], since this question expresses in political language the difference between
the rule of man and the rule of private property. This means that the critic not
only may but must deal with these political questions (which the inveterate Social-
ist considers unworthy of attention)."
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 101
Mikhailovsky has brought against the view that the relations of production
form the basis of all others, how he has disproved the concept formations of
society and the natural-historical process of development of these formations
worked out by Marx with the help of the materialist method, how he has
proved the fallacy of the materialist explanations of various historical
questions given, for instance, by the writers he has mentioned — that
person would have to answer that he has brought no objections, has in
no way disproved, and has pointed out no fallacies. He has merely beat
about the bush, trying to confuse tre essence of tre matter by phrase-
mongering, and in passing has invented various piffling subterfuges.
It is hard to expect anything serious of such a critic when he continues
to refute Marxism in No. 2 of Ruaskoye Bogatatvo. The only difference is
that he has already exhausted his own power of inventing manipulations
and begins to avail himself of those of others.
He starts out by declaiming about the "complexity" of social life:
why, even galvanism is connected with economic materialism, because
Galvani's experiments "produced an impression" on Hegel. Astonish-
ingly clever! One could just as easily connect Mr. Mikhailovsky with the
Emperor of China! What are we to deduce from this — apart from the fact
that there are people who find pleasure in talking nonsense?!
"The essence of the historical course of things," Mr. Mikhailovsky
continues, "which is elusive in general, has eluded the doctrine of
economic materialism, although the latter apparently rests on two pillars:
the discovery of the all-determining significance of the forms of produc*
tion and exchange and the unimpeachableness of the dialectical process, "
And so, the materialists rest their case on the "unimpeachableness"
of the dialectical process! In other words, they base their sociological
theories on Hegelian triads. Here we have the stereotyped charge of
Hegelian dialectics levelled against Marxism, a charge which one thought
had already been worn sufficiently threadbare by Marx's bourgeois critics.
Unable to bring anything against the doctrine itself, these gentlemen
fastened on Marx 's mode of expression and attacked the origin of the theory,
thinking thereby to undermine the theory itself. And Mr. Mikhailovsky
makes no bones about resorting to similar methods. He uses a chapter
from Engels' Anti-Diihring as a pretext. Replying to Diihring, who had
attacked Marx's dialectics, Engels says that Marx never even thought ot
"proving" anything by means of Hegelian triads, that Marx only studied
and investigated the real process, and that he regarded the conformity
of a theory to reality as its only criterion. If, however, it sometimes
transpired that the development of any particular social phenomenon
conformed with the Hegelian scheme, namely, thesis — negation — negation
of the negation, that is not at all surprising, for it is no rare thing
in nature generally. And Engels proceeds to cite examples from the
fie^ld of natural history (the development of a seed) and from the social
field — as fo'r instance, that first there was primitive Communism, then pri*
102 V. I. LENIN
vate property, and then the capitalist socialization of labour; or that first
there was primitive materialism, then idealism, and then scientific ma-
terialism, and so forth. It is clear to everybody that the main burden
of Engels' argument is that materialists must correctly and accurately,
depict the historical process, and that insistence on dialectics, the
selection of examples to demonstrate the correctness of the triad, is noth-
ing but a relic of the Hegelianism out of which scientific Socialism has
grown, a relic of its mode of expression. And, indeed, once it has been
categorically declared that to attempt to "prove" anything by triads is
absurd, and that nobody even thought of doing so, what significance can
examples of "dialectical" processes have? Is it not obvious that they mere-
ly point to the origin of the doctrine, and nothing more? Mr.Mikhai-
lovsky himself feels this when he says that the theory should not be blamed
for its origin. But in order to discern in Engels ' arguments something
more than the origin of the theory, it would obviously be necessary to prove
that the materialists had settled at least one historical problem by means
of triads, and not on the basis of the pertinent facts. Did Mr. Mikhai-
lovsky attempt to prove this? Not a bit of it. On the contrary, he was
himself obliged to admit that "Marx filled the empty dialectical scheme
so full with factual content that it could be removed from this content
like a lid from a bowl without anything being changed" (as to the ex-
ception which Mr. Mikhailovsky makes here — regarding the future — we
shall deal with it anon.) If that is so, why is Mr. Mikhailovsky so eagerly
concerned with this lid that changes nothing? Why does he assure us
that the materialists "rest" their case on the unimpeachableness of the
dialectical process? Why, when he is combating this lid, does he declare
that he is combating one of the "pillars" of scientific Socialism, which
is a direct untruth?
I shall not, of course, examine how Mr. Mikhailovsky analyses the
examples of triads, because, I repeat, this has no connection whatever
either with scientific materialism or with Russian Marxism. But the
interesting question arises: what grounds had Mr. Mikhailovsky for
so distorting the attitude of Marxists to dialectics? Twofold grounds:
firstly, Mr. Mikhailovsky heard something, but did not quite grasp what
it was all about; secondly, Mr. Mikhailovsky performed another piece
of juggling (or, rather, borrowed it from Diihring).
As to the first point, when reading Marxist literature Mr. Mikhailov-
sky constantly came across references to "the dialectical method" in so-
cial science, "dialectical thought," again in the sphere of social problems
(which is alone in question) and so forth. In his simplicity of heart (it
were well if it were only simplicity) he- took it for granted that this method
consists in solving all sociological problems in accordance with the laws
of the Hegelian triad. If he had been just a little more attentive to the
matter in hand he could not but have become convinced of the stu-
pidity of this notion. What Marx and Engels called the dialectical meth-
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 103
od — in contradistinction to the metaphysical method — is nothing more
nor less than the scientific method in sociology, which consists in regard-
ing society as a living organism in a constant state of development (and
not as something mechanically concatenated and therefore allowing
any arbitrary combination of separate social elements), the study of
which requires an objective analysis of the relations of production that
constitute the given social formation and an investigation of its laws
of functioning and development. We shall endeavour below to illustrate
the relation between the dialectical method and the metaphysical method
(to which concept the subjective method in sociology undoubtedly belongs)
by Mr. Mikhailovsky's own arguments. For the present we shall only
observe that anyone who reads the definition and description of the
dialectical method given either by Engels (in the polemic against
Diihring: Socialism, Utopian and Scientific) or by Marx (various notes
in Capital and the Postscript to the second edition; The Poverty of Phi-
losophy), will see that the Hegelian triads are not even mentioned, and
that it all amounts to regarding social evolution as a natural-historical
process of development of economic formations of society. In confirmation
of this I shall cite in extenso the description of the dialectical method
given in the Vestnik Evropy, 1872, No. 5 (in the article, "The Standpoint
of Karl Marx's Critique of Political Economy"), which is quoted by Marx
in the Postscript to the second edition of Capital. Marx there says that
the method employed in Capital has been little understood.
"German reviews, of course, shriek out at 'Hegelian sophistics.1"
And in order to illustrate his method more clearly, Marx quotes the
description of it given in the article mentioned.
"The one thing which is of moment to Marx," it is there stated,
"is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation
he is concerned. . . . Of still greater moment to him is the law
of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition
from one form into another, from one series of connections into a
different one. . . . Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about
one thing: to show, by precise scientific investigation, the necessity
of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to
establish, as fully as possible, the facts that serve him as basis and
starting points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at
the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things,
and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevi-
tably pass over — quite irrespective of whether men believe or. do
not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it.
Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history,
governed by laws not only independent of human will, conscious-
ness and intentions, but rather, on the contrary, '.determining their
104 V, I. LENIN
U consciousness and intentions of men. [To be noted by Messieurs
the sub j activists, who separate social evolution from the evolution
of natural history because man sets himself conscious 'aims' and
is guided by definite ideals.] If in the history of civilization the
conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evi-
dent that a critical inquiry whose subject matter is civilization,
can, ^less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any
result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the
outward manifestation alone can serve as its starting point. Such
an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the com-
parison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this in-
quiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated
as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with
respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most
important of all is the no less accurate analysis of the series of
successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the
different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it
will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the
same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or
the past. This Marx directly denies. . . . On the contrary, in
his opinion every historical period has laws of its own. . . .
Economic life offers a phenomenon analogous to the history
of evolution in other branches of biology. . . . The old economists
misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them
to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of
phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves
as fundamentally as plants or animals. . . . Whilst Marx sets himself
the task of following and explaining from this point of view the
capitalist economic system, he is only formulating, in a strictly
scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into
economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry
lies in the disclosing of the special [historical] laws that regulate
the origin, existence, development, and death of a given social orga-
nism and its replacement by another and higher one."
Such is the description of the dialectical method which Marx fished out
of the bottomless pit of magazine and newspaper comments on Capital, and
which he translated into German, because this description of the method,
as he himself says, is entirely correct. One asks, is there any mention
here, even a single word, about triads, trichotomies, the unimpeach-
ableness of the dialectical process and suchlike nonsense, at which
Mr. Mikhailovsky tilts in so knightly a fashion? And after giving this
description, Marx plainly says that his method is the "direct opposite"
of Hegel 's method. According to Hegel the development of the idea, in con-
formity with the dialectical laws of the triad, determines the development
of the real world. And it is of course only in that case that one could speak
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 105
of the importance of the triads and of the unimpeachableness of the dia-
lectical process. "With me, on the contrary," Marx says, "the ideal is
nothing else than the material world reflected." And the whole mat-
ter thus amounts to an "affirmative recognition of the existing state
of things" and of its inevitable development. No other role remains for
the triads than as a lid and a skin ("I coquetted with the modes of
expression" of Hegel, Marx says in this same Postscript), in which only
philistines could be interested. How, one now asks, should we judge a man
who set out to criticize one of the "pillars" of scientific materialism,
i.e., dialectics, and began to speak of anything you like, even of frogs
and Napoleon, except of what dialectics is, of whether the development
of society is really a process of natural history, whether the materialist
conception of economic formations of society as special social organisms is
correct, whether the methods of objective analysis of these formations
arc right, whether social ideas really do not determine social development
but are themselves defined by it, and so forth? Can one assume only
a lack of understanding in this case?
As to the second point: after such a "criticism" of dialectics,
Mr. Mikhailovsky attributes to Marx these methods of proof "by means of
Hegelian triads, and, of course, victoriously combats them.
"Regarding the future," he says, "the immanent laws of society
are based purely on dialectics." (This is the exception referred
to above.)
Marx's arguments on the subject of the inevitability of the expropria-
tion of the expropriators by virtue of the laws of development of capital-
ism are "purely dialectical." Marx's "ideal" of the common ownership
of land and capital "in the sense of its inevitability and unimpeachable-
ness rests entirely on the end of an Hegelian three-term chain."
This argument is entirely taken from Diihring, who adduces it in his
Kritische Oeschichte der Nationalokonomie und des Sozialismus (3 Aufl.y
1879, S. 486-87).* But Mr. Mikhailovsky says not a word about Diihring.
Perhaps the idea of garbling Marx in this way occurred to him independ-
ently?
Engels gave a splendid reply to Diihring, and since he also quotes Diih-
ring's criticism we shall confine ourselves to Engels ' reply. The reader will
see that it fits Mr. Mikhailovsky perfectly.
"'This historical sketch (of the genesis of the so-called primitive
accumulation of capital in England) is relatively the best part of
Marx's book [says Diihring], and would be even better if it had not
relied on dialectical crutches to help out its scholarly basis. The He-
gelian negation of the negation, in default of anything better and
* A Critical History of National Economy and Socialism, third edition, 1879,
pp. 486-87.— Ed.
106 V. I. LENIN
clearer, has in fact to serve here as the midwife to deliver the fu-
ture from the womb of the past. The abolition of individual property,
which since the sixteenth century has been effected in the way indi-
cated, is the first negation. It will be followed by a second,
which bears the character of a negation of the negation, hence the
restoration of "individual property," but in a higher form, based
on common ownership of the land and of the instruments of labour.
Herr Marx also calls this new "individual property" — "social prop-
erty," and in this we have the Hegelian higher unity, in which the
contradiction is resolved [aufgehoben — a specific Hegelian term], that
is to say, in the Hegelian verbal jugglery, it is both overcome and
preserved. . . . According to this, the expropriation of the expro-
priators is as it were the automatic result of historical reality in its
material and external relations. ... It would be difficult to convince
a sensible man of the necessity of the common ownership of land and
capital on the basis of Hegelian word-juggling such as the negation
of the negation. . . . The nebulous hybrids of Marx's conceptions
will however surprise no one who realizes what phantasies can be
built up with the Hegelian dialectics as the scientific basis, or rather
what absurdities necessarily spring from it. For the benefit of the
reader who is not familiar with these artifices, it must be expressly
pointed out that Hegel's first negation is the idea of the fall from
grace, which is taken from the catechism, and his second is the idea
of a higher unity leading to redemption. The logic of facts can hardly
be based on this nonsensical analogy borrowed from the religious
sphere. . . . Herr Marx remains cheerfully in the nebulous world of
his property which is at the same time both individual and social and
leaves it to his adepts to solve for themselves this profound dialectical
enigma. ' Thus far Herr Diiriring.
"So [Engels concludes] Marx has no other way of proving the ne-
cessity of the social revolution and the establishment of a social
system based on the common ownership of land and of the means of
production produced by labour, except by appealing to the Hegelian
negation of the negation; and because he bases his Socialist theory on
these nonsensical analogies borrowed from religion, he arrives at the
result that in the society of the future there will be property which
is at the same time both individual and social, as the Hegelian higher
unity of the sublated contradiction. *
* That this formulation of Duhring's views perfectly fits Mr. Mikhailovsky too
is proved by the following passage in his article "Karl Marx before the Tribunal
of Mr. Zhukovsky." Objecting to Mr. Zhukovsky's assertion that Marx is a
defender of private property, Mr. Mikhailovsky refers to this scheme of Marx's
and explains it in the following manner. "In his scheme Marx performed two
well-known tricks of the Hegelian dialectics: firstly, the scheme is constructed
in accordance with the laws of the Hegelian triad; secondly, the synthesis is based
on the identity of opposites — individual and social property. This means that
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 10?
"Let us for the moment leave the negation of the negation to look
after itself, and let us have a look at the 'property which is at the
same time both individual and social.' Herr Diihring characterizes
this as a 'nebulous world, ' and curiously enough he is really right on
this point. Unfortunately, however, it is not Marx but on the con-
trary Herr Diihring himself who is in this nebulous world ... he can
put Marx right a la Hegel, by foisting on him the higher unity of pro-
perty, of which there is not a word in Marx. [Marx says:]
"'It is the negation of negation. This does not reestablish private
property for the producer, but gives him individual property based
on the acquisitions of the capitalist era, i. e.9 on co-operation of free
labourers and the possession in common of the land and of the means
of production.
"'The transformation of scattered private property, arising from
individual labour, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a
process, incomparably more protracted, violent, and difficult, than
the transformation of capitalistic private property, already practi-
cally resting on socialized production, into socialized property. '*
"That is all. The state of things brought about through the ex-
propriation of the expropriators is therefore characterized as the re-
establishment of individual property, but 'on the basis' of the social
ownership of the land and of the means of production produced by
labour itself. To anyone who understands German [and Russian too,
Mr. Mikhailovsky, because the translation is absolutely correct] this
means that social ownership extends to the land and the other means
of production, and private ownership to the products, that is, the
articles of consumption. And in order to make this comprehensible
even to children of six, Marx assumes on page 56** 'a community of
free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production
in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals
is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the commu-
nity,' that is, a society organized on a Socialist basis; and he
says: 'The total product of our community is a social product. One
portion serves as fresh means of production and remains social. But
another portion is consumed by the members as means of subsist-
ence. A distribution of this portion among them is consequently neces-
sary. ' And surely that is clear enough even for Herr Diihring. . . .
the word 'individual* here has the specific, purely arbitrary meaning of a term
of the dialectical process, and absolutely nothing can be based on it." This was
said by a man of the most estimable intentions, defending, in the eyes of the
Russian public, the "sanguine" Marx from the bourgeois Mr. Zhukovsky. And
with these estimable intentions he explains Marx as basing his conception of the
process on "tricks" 1 Mr. Mikhailovsky may draw from this the for him not
unprofitable moral, that estimable intentions alone are never quite enough.
* Capital, Vol. I, p. 837.— Ed.
**/Wd.,p.90.— Ed.
108 V. i. LENIN
"The property which is at the same time both private and social,
this confused hybrid, this absurdity which necessarily springs from
Hegelian dialectics, this nebulous world, this profound dialectical
enigma, which Marx leaves his adepts to solve for themselves — is yet
another free creation and imagination on the part of Herr Diihring. . . .
"But what role [Engels continues] does the negation of the nega-
tion-play in Marx? On page 791 * and the following pages he sets out
the conclusions which he draws from the preceding fifty pages of eco-
nomic and historical investigation into the so-called primitive ac-
cumulation of capital. Before the capitalist era, at least in England,
petty industry existed on the basis of the private property of the la-
bourer in his means of production. The so-called primitive accumula-
tion of capital consisted in this case in the expropriation of these im-
mediate producers, that is, in the dissolution of private property based
on the labour of its owner. This was possible because the petty
industry referred to above is compatible only with a system of produc-
tion, and a society, moving within narrow and primitive bounds,
and at a certain stage of its development it brings forth the material
agencies for its own annihilation. This annihilation, the transfor-
mation of the individual and scattered means of production into so-
cially concentrated ones, forms the pre-history of capital. As soon as
the labourers are turned into proletarians, their means of labour into
capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own
feet, the further socialization of labour and further transformation
of the land andother means of production [into capital], and therefore
the further expropriation of private proprietors takes a new form.
"'That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the labourer
working for himself, but tjie capitalist exploiting many labourers.
This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent
laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital.
One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centraliza-
tion, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an
ever extending scale, the co-operative form of the labour process, the
conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation
of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labour into instru-
ments of labour only usable in common, the economizing of all
means of production by their use as the means of production of com-
bined, socialized labour. . . . Along with the constantly diminishing
number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all
advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of mis-
ery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too
grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in
number, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism
* Ibid., p. 834.— Ed.
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 109
of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capi-
tal becomes a fetter upon the mode of product ion, which has sprung up
and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means
of production and socialization of labour at last reach a point where
they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This in-
tegument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property
sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.'*
"And now I ask the reader: where are the dialectical frills and
mazes and intellectual arabesques; where the mixed and misconceived
ideas as a result of which everything is all one in the end; where the
dialectical miracles for his faithful followers; where the mysterious
dialectical rubbish and the contortions based on the Hegelian Logos
doctrine, without which Marx, according to Herr Duhring, is quite
unable to accomplish his development? Marx merely shows from his-
tory, and in this passage states in a summarized form, that just as
the former petty industry necessarily, through its own development,
created the conditions of its annihilation, i.e., of the expropriation
of the small proprietors, so now the capitalist mode of production has
likewise itself created the material conditions which will annihilate
it. The process is a historical one, and if it is at the same time a dia-
lectical process, this is not Marx's fault, however annoying it may
be for Herr Duhring.
"It is only at this point, after Marx has completed his proof on the
basis of historical and economic facts, that he proceeds: 'The capi-
talist mode of production and appropriation, and hence capitalist
private property, is the first negation of individual private property
founded on the labours of the proprietor. But capitalist production
begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation.
It is the negation of the negation' — and so on (as quoted above).
"In characterizing the process as the negation of the negation,
therefore, Marx does not dream of attempting to prove by this that
the process was historically necessary. On the contrary: after he has
proved from history that in fact the process has partially already
occurred, and partially must occur in the future, he then also char-
acterizes it as a process which develops in accordance with a definite
dialectical law. That is all. It is therefore once again a pure distortion
of the facts by Herr Duhring, when he declares that the negation of the
negation has to serve here as the midwife to deliver the future from
the womb of the past, or that Marx wants anyone to allow himself to
be convinced of the necessity of the common ownership of land and
capital ... on the basis of the negation of the negation."**
* Capital, pp. 836-37.— Ed.
** Frederick Engcls, Herr Kugen Duhrinff's Revolution in Science, Eng. Ed.,
Moscow, 1934, pp. 147-52.— Ed.
110 V. I. LENIN
The reader will see that the whole of Engels' splendid rebuttal of Diihr-
ing given here applies in all respects to Mr. Mikhailovsky, who
also asserts that with Marx the future rests exclusively on the end of an
Hegelian chain and that the conviction of its inevitability can be founded
only on faith.*
The whole difference between Diihring and Mr. Mikhailovsky reduces
itself to the following two small points: Firstly, Diihring, despite the fact
that he cannot speak of Marx without foaming at the mouth, nevertheless
considered it necessary to mention in the next fectionof his History that
Marx in the Postscript categorically repudiated the accusation of being
a Hegelian, whereas Mr. Mikhailovsky remains silent as to this (above
quoted) absolutely definite and clear statement by Marx of what he con-
ceives the dialectical method to be.
Secondly, another peculiarity of Mr. Mikhailovsky 's is that he concen-
trated all his attention on the use of tenses. Why, when he speaks of the
future, does Marx use the present tense? — our philosopher demands with
an air of triumph. The answer to this you will find in any grammar, most
worthy critic: you will find that the present tense is used in the
future when the future is regarded as inevitable and unquestionable.
But why so, why is it unquestionable? — Mr. Mikhailovsky anxiously
asks, desiring to convey such profound agitation as would justify even a
distortion. But on this point, too, Marx gave an absolutely definite reply.
You may consider it inadequate or wrong, but in that case you must
show how exactly and why exactly it is wrong, and not talk nonsense about
Hegelianism.
Time was when Mr. Mikhailovsky not only knew himself what this
reply was, but lectured others on it. Mr. Zhukovsky, he wrote in 1877,
might with good grounds regardMarx's construction concerning the future
as conjectural, but "he had no moral right" to ignore the question of the
socialization of labour, "to which Marx attributes vast importance."
Well, of course! Zhukovsky in 1877 had no moral right to ignore the ques-
tion, but Mr. Mikhailovsky in 1894 has this moral right. Perhaps, quod licet
Jovi, nan licet bovitl**
At this point I cannot help recalling an amusing conception of this so-
cialization which was atone time expressed in Otechestvenniye Zapiski. In
No. 7, 1883, this magazine printed a "Letter to the Editor" from a
* It would not be superfluous, I think, to note in this connection that this entire
explanation is contained in that same chapter in which Engels discusses the seed,
the teaching of Rousseau, and other examples of the dialectical process. One would
have thought that a mere comparison of these examples with the clear and
categorical statements of Engels (and of Marx, who had read the work in
manuscript) to the effect that there can be no question of proving anything by
triads or of inserting in the depiction of the real process the "conditional terms"
of these triads, should be quite sufficient to make clear the absurdity of accusing
Marxism of Hegelian dialectics.
•* What Jove may do, the bull may not. — Ed.
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE ill
certain Mr. Postoronny*who, just like Mr. Mikhailovsky, regarded Marx 's
"construction" about the future as conjectural.
"Essentially," this gentleman argues, "the social form of labour
under capitalism amounts to this, that several hundred or thousand
workers grind, hammer, turn, lay on, lay under, pull and perform
numerous other operations under one roof. As to the general character
of this regime it is excellently expressed by the pro verb: 'Each for him-
self, and God for all. ' What is there social about this form of labour?"
Well, you can see at once that the man has grasped what it is all about!
"The social form of labour . . . amounts to ... working under one
roof!" And when such preposterous ideas are expressed in one of the best
of the Russian magazines, they want to assure us that the theoretical
part of Capital is generally recognized by science. Yes, as it was unable
to adduce any objection to Capital of any serious weight, "generally rec-
ognized science" began to bow and scrape before it, at the same time
continuing to betray the most elementary ignorance and to repeat the old
banalities of school economics. We shall have to dwell a little on this
question in order to make clear to Mr. Mikhailovsky the real meaning of
the matter, which, according to his usual custom, he has entirely ignored.
The socialization of labour by capitalist production does not consist
in the fact that people work under one roof (that is only a small part of the
process), but in the fact that concentration of capital is accompanied
by specialization of social labour, by a reduction in the number of capital-
ists in any given branch of industry and an increase in the number of
special branches of industry — in the fact that many scattered processes of
production are merged into one social process of production. When, in the
days of handicraft weaving, for example, the smal ^producers themselves
spun the yarn and made it into cloth, we had only a few branches of in-
dustry (spinning and weaving were merged). But when production be-
comes socialized by capitalism, the number of special branches of industry
increases: cotton spinning and cotton weaving are separated; this divi-
sion and concentration of production in their turn give rise to new
branches — machine-building, coal mining, and so forth. In each branch
of industry, which has now become more specialized, the number of
capitalists steadily decreases. This means that the social tie between the
producers becomes increasingly stronger, the producers become weld-
ed into a single whole. The isolated small producers each performed
several operations at one time, and were therefore relatively independent
of each other: if, for instance, a handicraftsman himself sowed flax, and
himself spun and wove, he was almost independent of others. It was
this (and only this) regime of small, disunited commodity producers
that justified the proverb: "Each for himself, and God for all," that is,
* A pseudonym used by N. K. Mikhailovsky. — Ed.
112 V. I. LENIN
the anarchy of market fluctuations. But the case is entirely different under
the socialization of labour achieved by capitalism. The manufacturer
who produces fabrics depends on the cotton yarn manufacturer; the lat-
ter on the capitalist planter who grows the cotton, on the owner of the
machine-building works, the coal mine, and so on and so forth. The re-
sult is that no capitalist can get along without others. It is clear
that the proverb "each for himself" is quite inapplicable to such a regime:
here each works for all and all for each (and no room is left for God —
either as a supermundane fantasy or as a mundane "golden calf"). The
character of the regime completely changes. If during the regime of small,
isolated enterprises work came to a standstill in any one of them, this
affected only a small number of members of society, did not cause any
general disturbance, and therefore did not attract general attention and
did not provoke social interference. But if work comes to a standstill
in a large enterprise, devoted to a highly specialized branch of industry,
and therefore working almost for the whole of society and, in its turn,
dependent on the whole of society (for the sake of simplicity I take a
case where socialization has attained the culminating point), work is bound
to come to a standstill in all the other enterprises of society, because
they can obtain the necessary products only from this enterprise and can
dispose of all their commodities only provided the commodities of this
enterprise are available. The whole of production thus becomes fused
into a single social process of production; yet each enterprise is conduct-
ed by a separate capitalist, is dependent on his will and pleasure and turns
over the social products to him as his private property. Is it not clear that
the form of production comes into irreconcilable contradiction with the
form of appropriation? Is it not evident that the latter is bound to adapt
itself to the former and is also bound to become social, that is, Socialist?
But the smart philiStine of the Otechestvenniye Zapiski reduces the whole
thing to the performance of work under one roof. Could anything be wider
of the mark! (I have described only the material process, only the change
in the relations of production, without touching on the social aspect of
the process, the amalgamation, welding and organization of the workers,
since that is a derivative and subsidiary phenomenon.)
The reason that such elementary things have to be explained to the
Russian "democrats" is that they are immersed to their very ears in
middle-class ideas and are positively unable to imagine any but a mid-
dle-class order of things.
But let us return to Mr. Mikhailovsky. What objections did he level
against the facts and considerations on which Marx based the conclusion
that the Socialist system was inevitable by virtue of the very laws of
development of capitalism? Did he show that in reality — under a com-
modity organization of social economy — there is no growing specializa-
tion of the social process of labour, no concentration of capital and enter-
prises, no socialization of the whole labour process? No, he did not cite
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 113
a 'single instance in refutation of these facts. Did he shake the proposi-
tion that anarchy, which is irreconcilable with the socialization of labour,
is an inherent feature of capitalist society? He said nothing about this. Did
he prove that the amalgamation of the labour processes of all the capita-
lists into a single social labour process is compatible with private property,
or that some solution to the contradiction other than that indicated by
Marx is possible or conceivable? No, he did not say a single word about this.
On what then does his criticism rest? On twistings and distortions and
on a spate of words, words that are nothing but noise and wind.
For, indeed, how else are we to characterize such methods as the
critic, having first talked a lot of nonsense about triple successive steps
of history, demands of Marx with a serious air: "And what next?" — that
is, how will history proceed beyond that final stage of the process which
he has described. Please note that from the very outset of his literary
and revolutionary career Marx most definitely demanded that socio-
logical theory should accurately depict the real process — and nothing
more (c/., for instance, The Communist Manifesto on the Communists'
criterion of theory). He strictly adhered to this demand in his Capital:
he made it his task to give a scientific analysis of the capitalist formation
of society — and there he stopped, having shown that the development of
this organization actually going on before our eyes has such and such a
tendency, that it must inevitably perish and become transformed into an-
other, a higher organization. But Mr. Mikhailovsky, overlooking the whole
meaning of Marx's doctrine, puts his stupid question: "And what next?"
And he adds with an air of profundity : "I must frankly confess that I cannot
quite conceive what Engels would reply." But we must frankly confess,
Mr. Mikhailovsky, that we can quite conceive the spirit and methods of
such "criticism."
Or take the following argument:
"In the Middle Ages, Marx's individual property based on the pro-
prietor's own labour was neither the only nor the predominating
factor, even in the realm of economic relations. There was much
more alongside of it, to which, however, the dialectical method
in Marx's interpretation [and not in Mr. Mikhailovsky 's garbled
version of it?] does not propose to return. ... It is evident that
all these schemes do not present a picture of historical reality, or
even of its proportions, but simply satisfy the tendency of the human
mind to think of every object in its past, present and future states."
Even your methods of garbling, Mr. Mikhailovsky, are stereotyped
to the point of nausea. — First he insinuates into Marx's scheme, which
claims to formulate the actual process of development of capitalism,*
* Other features of the economic system of the Middle Ages are omitted for
the very reason that they belonged to the feudal social formation, whereas Marx
investigates only the capitalist formation. In its pure form the process of develop-
114 V. I. LENIN
and nothing else, the intention of proving everything by triads; then
he establishes the fact that Marx 's scheme does not conform to this plan
foisted on it by Mr. Mikhailovsky (the third stage restores only one
aspect of the first stage, omitting all the others); and then in the coolest
manner possible he comes to the conclusion that "the scheme evidently
does not present a picture of historical reality"!
Is any serious controversy thinkable with such a man, a man who (as
Engels said of Diihring) is incapable of quoting accurately even by
way of exception? Is there any arguing, when the public is assured that
the scheme "evidently" does not conform to reality, while not even an
attempt is made to prove its falsity in any particular?
Instead of criticizing the real contents of Marxist views, Mr. Mikhai-
lovsky exercises his ingenuity on the subject of the categories past, pre-
sent and future. Arguing against the "eternal truths" of Herr Diihring,
Engels, for instance, says that the "morality . . . preached to us today** is
a threefold morality; feudal Christian, bourgeois and proletarian, so
that the past, present and future have their own theories of morality.
In this connection, Mr. Mikhailovsky reasons as follows:
"I think that it is the categories past, present and future that
lie at the basis of all triple divisions of history into periods."
What profundity I Who does not know that if any social phenomenon
is examined in its process of development, there will always be discov-
ered in it relics of the past, the foundations of the present and the
germs of the future? But did Engels, for instance, think of asserting that
the history of morality (he was speaking, we know, only of the "pre-
sent") was confined to the three factors indicated, that feudal morality,
for example, was not preceded by slave morality, and the latter by the
morality of the primitive Communist community? Instead of seriously
criticizing Engels ' attempt to analyse the modern trends of moral ideas by
explaining them materialistically, Mr. Mikhailovsky treats us to the
most empty phrasemongering.
In connection with the methods of "criticism" Mr. Mikhailovsky
resorts to, a criticism which begins with the statement that he does not
know where, in what work, the materialist conception of history is expound-
ed, it would perhaps not be unprofitable to recall that there was a time
when the author knew one of these works and was capable of appraising it
more correctly. In 1877, Mr. Mikhailovsky expressed the following
opinion of Capital:
"If we remove from Capital the heavy, clumsy and unnecessary
lid of Hegelian dialectics [How strange! How is it that "the Hege*
lian dialectics" was "unnecessary" in 1877, while in 1894 it appears
ment of capitalism actually did begin — for instance, in England — with the regime
of small, isolated commodity producers and their individual labour property.
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE U6
that materialism tests on "the unimpeachableness of the dialectic-
al process"?], we shall observe in it, aside from the other merits
of this work, splendidly digested material for an answer to the
general question of the relation of forms to the material conditions
of their existence, and an excellent formulation of this question
for a definite sphere."
"The relation of forms to the material conditions of their existence" —
why, this is precisely that question of the inter-relation of the various
aspects of social life, of the superstructure of ideological social relations
resting on material relations, in the answer to which the doctrine of ma-
terialism consists. Let us proceed.
"In point of fact, the whole of 'Capital9 [my italics] is devoted
to an inquiry into how a social form, once arisen, continues to
develop and accentuates its typical features, subjecting to itself
and assimilating discoveries, inventions, improvements in methods
of production, new markets and science itself, compelling them to
work for it, and how, finally, the given form is unable to stand any
further changes in material conditions."
An astonishing thing! In 1877, "the whole of 'Capital'99 was devoted to
a materialist inquiry into a given social form (what is materialism if not
an explanation of social forms by material conditions), whereas in 1894
it turns out that it is not even known where, in what work, an exposition
of this materialism is to be sought!
In 1877, Capital contained an "inquiry" into how "a given form
[the capitalist form, is that not so?] is unable to stand any further changes
in material conditions" (mark that!) — whereas in 1894 it turns out that
there was no inquiry at all, and that the conviction that the capitalist
form is unable to stand any further development of productive forces — rests
"entirely on the end of a Hegelian triad"! In 1877, Mr. Mikhailovsky
wrote that "the analysis of the relations of the given social form to the
material conditions of its existence will forever [my italics] remain a
memorial to the logical force and the vast erudition of the author" —
whereas in 1894 he declares that the doctrine of materialism has never
and nowhere been verified and proved scientifically!
An astonishing thing! What can this mean? What has happened?
Two things have happened. Firstly, the Russian peasant Socialism
of the 'seventies — which "snorted" at freedom because of its bourgeois
character, which fought the "clear-browed liberals" who zealously glossed
over the antagonisms of Russian life, and which dreamed of a peasant
revolution — has completely decayed and has begotten that vulgar middle-
class liberalism which discerns an "encouraging impression" in the
progressive trends of peasant husbandry, forgetting that they are accompa-
nied (and determined) by the wholesale expropriation of the peasantry.
11 V. L LENIN
Secondly, in 1877 Mr, Mikhailovsky was so engrossed in his task
of defending the "sanguine" (i.e., revolutionary Socialist) Mar* from the
liberal critics that he failed to observe the incompatibility of Marx's
method with his own method. But now this irreconcilable antagonism be-
tween dialectical materialism and subjective sociology has been explained
to him — explained by Engels' articles and books, and by the Russian
Social-Democrats (in Plekhanov one frequently meets with very apt
comments on Mr. Mikhailovsky) — and Mr. Mikhailovsky, instead of
seriously sitting down to reconsider the whole question, has simply taken the
bit between his teeth. Instead of welcoming Marx, as he did in 1872 and
1877, he now yelps at him under the guise of dubious praises, and shouts
and fumes against the Russian Marxists for not wanting to rest content
with "the defence of the economically weak," with warehouses and improve-
ments in the countryside, with museums and artels for kustars and
similar well-meaning philistine ideas of progress, and for wanting to
remain "sanguine" advocates of a social revolution and to teach, guide
and organize the really revolutionary elements of society.
After this brief excursion into the realm of the long-ago, one may,
we think, conclude this examination of Mr. Mikhailovsky 's "criticism"
of Marx's theory. Let us then try to review and summarize the critic's
"arguments."
The doctrine he designed to destroy rests, firstly, on the materialist
conception of history, and, secondly, on the dialectical method.
As to the first, the critic began by declaring that he does not know
where, in what work materialism is expounded. Not having found this
exposition anywhere, he began to invent a meaning for materialism him-
self. In order to give an idea of tbe excessive claims of this materialism,
he invented the story that the materialists claim to have explained the
entire past, present and future of mankind — and when it subsequently
transpired from a consul tat ion of authentic statements of the Marxists that
they regard only one social formation as having been explained, the critic
decided that the materialists are narrowing the scope of materialism,
whereby, he asserts, they are destroying their own position. In order to
give an idea of the methods by which this materialism was worked out,
he invented the story that the materialists themselves confessed to the
inadequacy of their knowledge for such a purpose as the working out of
scientific Socialism, in spite of the fact that Marx and Engels confessed to
the inadequacy of their knowledge (in 1845-46) in relation to economic
history in general, and in spite of the fact that they never published the
work which testified to this inadequacy of knowledge. After these preludes,
we were treated to the criticism itself: Capital was annihilated by the fact
that it deals with only one period, whereas the critic wants to have all
periods, and also by the fact that it does not affirm economic materialism,
but simply touches upon it — arguments, evidently, so weighty and cogent
as to compel the recognition that materialism had never been scientifically
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE H?
proved. Then the fact was] brought against materialism that a man who
had absolutely no connection with this doctrine, having studied prc-historic
times in an entirely different country, also arrived at materialist conclu-
sions. Further, in order to show that it was absolutely wrong to bring
procreation into materialism, that this was nothing but a verbal artifice,
the critic set out to prove that economic relations are a superstructure
on sexual and family relations. The statements made by our weighty critic
in the course of this for the edification of the materialists enriched Us
with the profound verity that inheritance is impossible without procre-
ation, that a complex psychology "borders" on the products of this
procreation, and that children are brought up in the spirit of their
fathers. In passing, we also learnt that national ties are a continuation
and generalization of gentile ties.
Continuing his theoretical researches into materialism, the critic noted
that the content of many of the arguments of the Marxists consists in the
assertion that oppression and exploitation of the masses are "necessary"
under the bourgeois regime and that this regime must "necessarily" be-
come transformed into a Socialist regime — and thereupon he hastened
to declare that necessity is too general a parenthesis (if it is not stated
what exactly people consider necessary) and that therefore Marxists
are mystics and metaphysicians. The critic also declared that Marx's
polemic against the idealists is "one-sided," but he did not say a wortf
about the relation of the views of these idealists to the subjective
method and the relation of Marx's dialectical materialism to these views.
As to the second pillar of Marxism — the dialectical method — one
push by the brave critic was enough to cast it to the ground. And the
push was very well aimed: the critic wrought and laboured with incred-
ible zeal to disprove that anything can be proved by triads, hushing up the
fact that the dialectical method does not consist in triads, that it in fact
consists in rejecting the methods of idealism and subjectivism in .sociol-
ogy. Another push was specially aimed at Marx: with the help of the
valorous Herr Diihring, the critic ascribed to Marx the incredible absurd-
ity of trying to prove the necessity of the doom of capitalism by means
of triads — and then victoriously combated this absurdity.
Such is the epos of brilliant "victories" of "our well-known sociologist" I
How "edifying" (Burenin) is the contemplation of these victories, is it not?
We cannot refrain at this point from touching on another circumstance,
one which has no direct bearing on the criticism of Marx's doctrine, but
which is extremely significant in elucidating the critic's ideals and his idea
of reality, namely, his attitude to the working-class movement in Western
Europe.
Above we quoted a statement by Mr. Mikhailovsky in which he says
that materialism has not justified itself in "science" (in the science of
the German "friends of the people," perhaps?); but this materialism,
argues Mr. Mikhailovsky, "is really spreading very rapidly among the
118 V. I. LENIN
working class." How docs Mr. Mikhailovsky explain this fact? "As to
the success, " he says, "which economic materialism enjoys in breadth, so
to speak, its widespread acceptance in a critically unverified form, this
success chiefly lies, not in science, but in common practice established
by prospects in the direction of the future."
What other meaning can there be to this clumsy phrase about practice
"established:" by prospects in the direction of the future than that mate-
rialism is spreading not because it correctly explains reality, but because
it turns away from reality in the direction of prospects? And he goes
on to say:
"These prospects demand of the German working class whicft is
adopting them and of those who take a warm interest in its fate
neither knowledge nor an effort of critical thought. They demand
only faith."
In other words, the wide spread of materialism and scientific Socialism
is due to the fact that this doctrine promises the workers a better future!
Why, anybody with even a most elementary acquaintance with the history
of Socialism and of the working-class movement in the West will see
the utter absurdity and falsity of this explanation. Everybody knows that
scientific Socialism never painted any prospects for the future as such: it
confined itself to analysing the present bourgeois regime, to studying the
trenda of development of the capitalist social organization — and that is all.
"We do not say to the world," Marx wrote in 1843, and he fulfilled
this program to the letter — "We do not say to the world: 'Cease
struggling... your whole struggle is futile.' We provide it with
a true slogan for the struggle. We only show the world what it
is really struggling for, and realization is a thing which the world
must acquire, whether it liies it or not."
Everybody knows that Capital9fot instance — that prime and basic work
in which scientific Socialism is expounded — restricts itself to the most gen-
eral allusions to the future and traces only those already existing elements
from which the future system is springing. Everybody knows that as
regards prospects for the future incomparably more was contributed by
the earlier Socialists, who described the future society in every detail,
desiring to fire mankind with a picture of a system under which people
will get along without conflict and under which their social relations
will be based not on exploitation but on true principles of progress, con-
forming to the conditions of human nature. Nevertheless, in spite of a
whole phalanx of highly talented people who expounded these ideas,
and in spite of the most convinced Socialists, their theories stood aloof
from life and their programs from the political movements of the people
until large-scale machine industry drew the mass of the work-
ing-class proletariat into the vortex of political life, and until the true
slogan for their struggle was found. This slogan was found by Marx, not
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 119
a "utopian, but a strict and, in places, even dry scientist" (as Mr. Mikhai-
lovsky called him in long bygone days — in 1872); and it was not found
by virtue of prospects, but of a scientific analysis of the present bour-
geois regime, by virtue of an elucidation of the necessity of exploitation
under this regime, by virtue of an investigation of the laws of its
development. Mr. Mikhailovsky, of course, may assure the readers of
Rusakoye Bogatstvo that neither knowledge nor effort of thought is required
to understand this analysis, but we have already seen in his own case
(and shall see it no less in the case of his Economist collaborator) such
a gross lack of understanding of the elementary truths established by this
analysis that such a statement, of course, can only provoke a smile. It
remains an indisputable fact that the spread and development of the work-
ing-class movement are proceeding precisely where large-scale capital-
ist machine industry is developing, and in proportion to its development,
and that the Socialist doctrine is successful only when it stops arguing
about the social conditions that harmonize with human nature and sets out
to make a materialist analysis of contemporary social relations and to
elucidate the necessity of the present regime of exploitation.
Having tried to evade the real reasons for the success of materialism
among the workers by describing the attitude of this doctrine to the
"prospects," in a way which is directly contrary to the truth,
Mr. Mikhailovsky now begins to scoff in the most vulgar and philistine
manner at the ideas and tactics of the West European working-class move-
ment. As we have seen, he was unable to bring literally a single argu-
ment to bear against Marx 's proofs of the inevitability of the transformation
of the capitalist system into a Socialist system as a result of the social-
ization of labour. But without the slightest embarrassment, he ironically
remarks that "the army of proletarians" is preparing to expropriate the
capitalists, "whereupon all class conflict will cease and peace on earth and
good- will among men will reign." He, Mr. Mikhailovsky, knows of far
simpler and surer ways of achieving Socialism than this: All that is required
is that the "friends of the people" should explain in greater detail the
"clear and infallible" ways of achieving "the desired economic evolution" —
and then these friends of the people will most likely "be called" to solve
the "practical economic problems" (see the article, "Problems of the Eco-
nomic Development of Russia," by Mr. Yuzhakov, in Busskoye Bogatstvo,
No. 11), and meanwhile . . . meanwhile the workers must wait, rely on
the friends of the people and not undertake, with "unjustified self-as-
surance," an independent struggle against the exploiters. Desiring utterly
to demolish this "unjustified self-assurance," our author expresses his
fervent disgust with "this science which can almost be contained in a vest-
pocket dictionary." How terrible, indeed! Science — and penny Social-
Democratic pamphlets that can be put in one's pocket!! Is it not obvious
how unjustifiably self-assured are the people who value science only to
the extent that it teaches the exploited to wage an independent struggle
120 V. I. LENIN
for their emancipation — teaches them to hold aloof from all "friends of
the people" that gloss over class antagonism and desire to take the whole
business upon themselves — and who therefore expound this science in penny
publications which so shock the philistines? How different it would
be if the workers entrusted their destiny to the "friends of the people"!
They would give them a real many-tomed, university, philistine science;
they would Acquaint them with the details of a social organization which
is in harmony with human nature, provided only . . . the workers consented
to wait and did not themselves begin a struggle with such unjusti-
fied self-assurance !
Before passing to the second part of Mr. Mikhailovsky 's "criticism,"
which this time is directed not against Marx's theory in general but
against the Russian Social-Democrats in particular, we shall have to make
a little digression. The fact of the matter is that just as, when criticizing
Marx, Mr. Mikhailovsky not only made no attempt to give an accurate
description of Marx's theory but definitely distorted it, so now he most
unscrupulously garbles the ideas of the Russian Social-Democrats. The
truth must be restored. This can be done most conveniently by comparing
the ideas of the earlier Russian Socialists with the ideas of the Social-
Democrats. I borrow an account of the former from an article by Mr. Mi-
khailovsky in Russkaya Mysl, 1892, No. 6, in which he also spoke of Marx-
ism (and spoke of it — let it be said to his present shame — in a decent tone,
without dealing with questions which can be treated in a censored press
only in the Burenin manner, and without confusing the Marxists with all
sorts of riff-raff) and, as against Marxism — or, at least, if not against,
then parallel with Marxism — set forth his own views. Of course, I have
not the least desire to offend either Mr. Mikhailovsky, by reckoning him
among the Socialists, or the Russian Socialists, by putting them on a par
with Mr. Mikhailovsky; but I think that the line of argument is essen-
tially the same in both cases, the difference being only in the degree
of firmness, straightforwardness and consistency of their convictions.
Describing the ideas of the Otechestvenniye Zapiski, Mr. Mikhailovsky
wrote:
"We have included the ownership of the land by the tiller and
of the implements of labour by the producer among the moral and
political ideals."
The point of departure, you see, is most well-intentioned, inspired
with the best wishes. . . .
"The mediaeval forms of labour* still existing in our country have
been seriously shaken, but we saw no reason to put a complete end
* "By mediaeval forms of labour" — the author explains in another place —
"are meant not only communal land ownership, handicraft industry and artel
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 121
to them for the sake of any doctrine whatever, liberal or non-
liberal."
A strange argument! For, "forms of labour" of any kind can be shaken
only by replacing them with some other forms; yet we do not find our
author (nor any of his co-thinkers for that matter) even attempting to
analyse and explain these new forms, or to ascertain why these new forms
oust the old forms. Stranger still is the second half of the tirade:
"We saw no reason to put an end to these forms for the sake of any
doctrine."
What means do "we" (i>e.y the Socialists — seethe above reservation)
possess of "putting an end" to forms of labour, that is, of reconstructing
the existing relations of production of the members of society? Is not the
idea that these relations can be remade in accordance with a doctrine
really absurd? Listen to what comes next:
'-Our task is not to rear at all costs an 'exceptional' civilization
from out of our own national depths; but neither is it to transplant to
our country the Western civilization in totoywiih all the contradic-
tions that are rending it; we must take what is good from wher-
ever we can; and whether it happens to be our own or foreign is not a
matter of principle, but of practical convenience. Surely, this is
so simple, clear and comprehensible that there is nothing even to
discuss."
And how simple it all is, indeed! "Take" what is good from everywhere —
and there you are! From the mediaeval forms "take" the ownership of
the means of production by the worker, and from the new (i.e., the
capitalist) forms "take" liberty, equality, enlightenment and culture.
And there is nothing even to discuss! Here you have the whole subject-
ive method of sociology in a nutshell: sociology starts with a Utopia —
the ownership of the land by the worker — and points out the conditions
for realizing the desirable, namely, "take" what is good from here and
from there. This philosopher regards social relations from a purely
metaphysical standpoint, as a simple mechanical aggregation of vari-
ous institutions, as a simple mechanical concatenation of various
phenomena. He plucks out one of these phenomena — the ownership of
the land by the tiller in mediaeval forms — and thinks that it can
be transplanted to all other forms, just as a brick can be transferred from
one building to another. Yes, but that is not studying social relations;
it is mutilating the material to be studied. In reality, there is no such
thing as the ownership of the land by the tiller, existing individually
and independently, as you have taken it. That was only one of the links
in the relations of production of that time, which consisted in the land
organization. These are undoubtedly all mediaeval forms, but to them must be
added all forms of ownership of land or implements of production by the worker".
122 V.I. LENIN
being divided up among large landed proprietors, landlords, and the
landlords allotting it to the peasants in order to exploit them, so that
the land was, as it were, wages in kind: it provided the peasant with
necessary products, in order that he might be able to produce surplus
product for the landlord; it was a fund which secured the landlord the
services of the peasant. Why did the author not follow up this system
of relations of production, instead of confining himself to plucking
out one phenomenon and thus presenting it in an absolutely false light?
Because the author does not know how to handle social problems: he
(I repeat, I am using Mr. Mikhailovsky's arguments only as an example
in order to criticize Russian Socialism as a whole) does not even make it
his business to explain the "forms of labour" of that time and to pre-
sent them as a definite system of relations of production, as a definite
social formation. To use Marx's expression the dialectical method, which
obliges us to regard society as a living organism in its functioning and
development, is foreign to him.
Without stopping to think why the old forms of labour are ousted
by the new forms, he repeats exactly the same error when he dis-
cusses these new forms. It is enough for him to note that these forms
"shake" the ownership of the land by the tiller — that is, speaking
more generally, find expression in the divorcement of the producer
from the means of production — and to condemn this for not conforming
to the ideal. And here again his argument is utterly absurd: he plucks out
one phenomenon (loss of land), without even attempting to represent it
as a term of a now different system of relations of production, based on
commodity production, which necessarily begets competition among the
commodity producers, inequality, the impoverishment of some and the
enrichment of others. He noted one phenomenon, the impoverishment of
the masses, and put aside the other, the enrichment of the minority, and
thereby deprived himself of the possibility of comprehending either.
And such methods he calls "seeking answers to the questions of life
in their flesh and blood form" (Russkoye Bogatetvo, 1894, No. 1), when
as a matter of fact quite the contrary is the case: unable and unwilling to
explain reality, to look it straight in the face, he ignominiously fled from
these questions of life, with its struggle of the haves against the have-
nots, to the realm of pious Utopias. This he calls "seeking answers to
the questions of life in the ideal treatment of their actual burning and
complex reality" (Biisskoye Bogatetvo, No. 1), when as a matter of fact
he did not even attempt to analyse and explain this actual reality.
Instead, he presented us with a Utopia contrived by senselessly pluck-
ing individual elements from various social formations — taking one
thing from the mediaeval formation, another from the "new" forma-
tion, and so on. It is obvious that a theory based on this was bound
to stand aloof from actual social evolution, for the simple reason that
our Utopians had to live and act not under social relations formed from
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OP THE PEOPLE" ARE 123
elements taken from here and from there, but under those which deter-
mine the relation of the peasant to the kulak (the thrifty muzhik), of the
kustar to the dealer, of the worker to the manufacturer, and which
they completely failed to comprehend. Their attempts and efforts to re-
mould these uncomprehended relations in accordance with their ideal
were bound to end in a fiasco.
Such, in very general outline, was the position of Socialism in Russia
when "the Russian Marxists appeared on the scene."
It was precisely with a criticism of the subjective methods of the ear-
lier Socialists that they began. Not satisfied with merely establishing
the fact of exploitation and condemning it, they desired to explain it.
Realizing that the whole post- Reform history of Russia consisted in the
impoverishment of the mass and the enrichment of a minority, obser-
ving the colossal expropriation of the small producers side by side with
universal technical progress, noting that these opposite tendencies arose
and became accentuated wherever, and to the extent that, commodity
production developed and became consolidated, they could not but con-
clude that they were confronted with a bourgeois (capitalist) organi-
zation of social economy, which necessarily gave rise to the expropri-
ation and oppression of the masses. Their practical program was quite
directly determined by this conviction. This program was to join the
struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, the struggle of the
propertyless classes against the propertied, which constitutes the prin-
cipal content of economic reality in Russia, from the most out-of-the-
way village to the most up-to-date and perfected factory. How were
they to join it? The answer was again suggested by real life. Capitalism
had advanced the principal branches of industry to the stage of
large-scale machine industry; by thus socializing production, it had
created the material conditions for a new system and had at the same time
created a new social force — the class of factory workers, the urban pro-
letariat. Subjected to the same bourgeois exploitation as the exploi-
tation of the whole toiling population of Russia is in its economic
essence, this class, however, has been placed, as far as its emancipation
is concerned, in rather favourable circumstances: it has no longer
any ties with the old society, which was wholly based on exploi-
tation; the very conditions of its labour and circumstances of
life organize it, compel it to think and enable it to step into the
arena of the political struggle. It was only natural that the Social-Demo-
crats should direct all their attention to, and base all their hopes on
this class, that they should make the development of its class conscious-
ness their program, that they should direct all their activities towards
helping it to rise and wage a direct political struggle against the'present
regime and towards enlisting the whole Russian proletariat in this struggle.
124 V. I. LENIN
Let us now see how Mr. Mikhailovsky fights the Social-Democrats.
What arguments does he level against their theoretical views, against
their political, Socialist activity?
The theoretical views of the Marxists are set forth by the critic in the
following manner:
"The truth [the Marxists are represented as declaring] is that
in accordance with the immanent laws of historical necessity Rus-
sia will develop her own capitalist production, with all its inherent
contradictions and the swallowing up of the small capitalists by
the large, and meanwhile the muzhik, divorced from the land,
will become transformed into a proletarian, unite, become 'so-
cialized'— and the job will be done — mankind will be happy."
So you see, the Marxists do not differ in any way from the "friends
of the people" in their conception of reality; they differ only in their
idea of the future: they are not in the least concerned with the present,
it appears, but only with "prospects. "That this is precisely Mr. Mikha-
ilovsky's idea, of that there can be no doubt: the Marxists, he says, "are
fully convinced that there is nothing Utopian in their forecasts of the
future, and that everything has been weighed and measured in accordance
with the strict dictates of science." And, finally, he says, even more
explicitly, that the Marxists "believe in and preach the immutability
of an tbstract historical scheme."
In a word, what we find levelled at the Marxists is that most banal
and vulgar allegation to which everybody who has nothing substantial
to bring against their views has long resorted.
"The Marxists preach the immutability of an abstract historical
scheme!"
But then, this is a sheer lie and invention!
Nowhere has any Marxist ever argued that there "must be" capitalism
in Russia "because" theie was capitalism in the West, and so on.
No Marxist has ever regarded Marx's theory as a general and compul-
sory philosophical scheme of history, or as anything more than an expla-
nation of a particular social-economic formation. Only Mr. Mikhai-
lovsky, the subjective philosopher, has managed to betray such a lack
of understanding of Marx as to attribute to him a general philosophical
theory, in reply to which he received from Marx the quite explicit
explanation that he was barking up the wrong tree. No Marxist has
ever based his Social-Democratic views on anything but their con-
formity with the tealities and the history of the given, that is, the
Russian social and economic relations; and he could not have done so,
because this demand on theory has been quite definitely and clearly
proclaimed and made the cornerstone of the whole doctrine by Marx
himself, the founder of "Marxism."
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 126
Of course, Mr. Mikhailovsky may refute these statements as much as
be pleases on the grounds that he has heard "with his own ears" the preach-
ing of an abstract historical scheme. But what does it matter to us,
the Social-Democrats, or to anybody else for that matter, that Mr. Mi-
khailovsky has had occasion to hear all sorts of absurd nonsense from the
people he associates with? Does it not only go to show that he is very fortu-
nate in the choice of the people he associates with, and nothing more? It
is very possible, of course, that the witty people with whom the witty
philosopher associates call themselves Marxists, Social-Democrats, and
so forth — but who does not know that nowadays (as was noted long
ago) every adventurer likes to deck himself in a "red"* cloak? And
if Mr. Mikhailovsky is so perspicacious that he cannot distinguish
these "mummers" from Marxists, or if he has understood Marx so pro-
foundly as never to have noted this criterion of his whole doctrine (the for-
mulation of "what is going on before our eyes") that Marx so emphatically
stressed, it only again shows that Mr. Mikhailovsky is not very intelli-
gent, and nothing else.
At any rate, if he undertook to conduct a polemic in the press against
the "Social-Democrats," he should have dealt with the group of Social-
ists who have long borne that name and borne it alone so that no others
could be confounded with them, and who have their literary represent-
atives — Plekhanov and his circle. And had he done so — and that obvi-
ously is what anybody with any decency should have done — and had
consulted at least the first Social-Democratic work, Plekhanov *s Our
Differences, he would have found in its very first pages a categorical decla-
ration made by the author on behalf of all the members of the circle:
"We in no case desire to shelter our program under the author-
ity of a great name" (i.e., the authority of Marx). Do you under-
stand Russian, Mr. Mikhailovsky? Do you understand the difference
between preaching abstract schemes and entirely disclaiming the authority
of Marx when passing judgment on Russian affairs?
Do you realize that, by presenting the first opinion you happened
to hear from the people you associate with as a Marxist opinion, and by
ignoring the published declaration of one of the prominent members of
Social-Democracy made on behalf of the whole group, you acted dishon-
estly?
And then the declaration becomes even more explicit:
"I repeat," Plekhanov says, "that differences of opinion regard-
ing modern Russian realities are possible among the most consistent
Marxists . . . four doctrine] is the first attempt to apply this scientific
theory to the analysis of very complex and intricate social relations.**
* All this is said on the assumption that Mr. Mikhailovsky did indeed hear
abstract historical schemes preached, and has not prevaricated.. But I consider
it absolutely imperative in this connection to make the reservation that I give
this only for what it is worth.
126 V. L LENIN
It would seem difficult to say anything more clearly: the Marxists
unreservedly borrow from Marx's theory only its invaluable methods,
without which an explanation of social relations is impossible, and
consequently they consider the criterion of their judgment of these
relations to lie in its fidelity and conformity to reality, and not in ab-
stract schemes and suchlike nonsense.
Perhaps you think the author actually meant something else by these
statements? But that is not so. The question he was dealing with was —
"must Russia pass through the capitalist phase of development?" There-
fore the question was not formulated in a Marxist way but in accord*
ance with the subjective methods of sundry native philosophers, for
whom the criterion of this "must" lies in the policy of the authorities, or
in the activities of "society," or in the ideal of a society which is "in har-
mony with human nature," and similar nonsense. The question then arises,
how would a man who preaches abstract schemes have answered such
a question? Obviously, he would have begun to speak of the unimpeach-
ableness of the dialectical process, of the general philosophical impor-
tance of Marx's theory, of the inevitability of every country passing
through the phase of ... and so on and so forth.
And how did Plekhanov answer it?
In the only way a Marxist could answer it.
He entirely left aside the question of what must be, considering it an
idle one, one that could interest only subjectivists, and spoke only of
r^al social and economic relations and of their real evolution. He there-
fore did not give a direct answer to this wrongly- formulated question,
but instead replied: "Russia has entered on the capitalist path."
But Mr. Mikhailovsky, with the air of a connoisseur, talks about the
preaching of abstract historical schemes, about the immanent laws of ne-
cessity, and similar incredible nonsense. And he calls this "a polemic
against the Social-Democrats" ! !
If this is a polemicist, then I simply fail to understand — what is a
windbag?!
One must also observe in connection with Mr. Mikhailovsky 's argument
quoted above that he represents the views of the Social-Democrats as
being that "Russia will develop her own capitalist production." Evidently,
in the opinion of this philosopher, Russia has not got "her own" capital-
ist production. The author apparently shares the opinion that Russian
capitalism is confined to one and a half million workers. We shall later
on again meet with this childish idea of our "friends of the people," who
class all the other forms of exploitation of free labour under heaven knows
what heading.
"Russia will develop her own capitalist production with all
its inherent contradictions . . . and meanwhile the muzhik di-
vorced from the land, will become transformed into a proletarian."
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE** ARE 12?
The deeper the forest, the thicker the trees I So there are no "inherent
contradictions" in Russia? Or, to put it plainly, there is no exploitation
of the mass of the people by a handful of capitalists; there is no impov-
erishment of the vast majority of the population and no enrichment of
a few? The muzhik has still to be divorced from the land? Why, what is
the whole post- Reform history of Russia, if not the wholesale expropri-
ation of the peasantry on a hitherto unparalleled scale? One must possess
great courage indeed to say such things publicly. And Mr. Mikhailovsky
possesses that courage:
"Marx dealt with a ready-made proletariat and a ready-made capita-
lism, whereas we have still to create them."
Russia has still to create a proletariat?! In Russia — in which alone
can be found such hopeless poverty of the masses and such shameless
exploitation of the toilers; which in respect to the condition of her poor
has been compared (and legitimately) with England; and in which the star-
vation of millions of people is a permanent phenomenon existing side
by side, for instance, with a steady increase in the export of grain —
in Russia there is no proletariat!
I think Mr. Mikhailovsky deserves to have a memorial erected to
him in his lifetime for these classic words!*
But we shall see later that this is a constant and consistent tactical
manoeuvre of the "friends of the people," namely, pharisaically to close
their eyes to the intolerable condition of the toilers in Russia, to de-
pict it as having been only "shaken," so that all that is needed is an
effort by "cultured society" and by the government to put everything
on the right track. These knights in shining armour think that if they
close their eyes to the fact that the condition of the toiling masses is bad
not because it has been "shaken," but because these masses are being shame-
lessly robbed by a handful of exploiters, that if they bury their heads
in the sand like ostriches so as not to see these exploiters, the exploiters will
disappear. And when the Social-Democrats tell them that it is shameful
cowardice to fear to look reality in the face; when they take the fact of
exploitation as their starting point and say that its only possible expla-
nation lies in the bourgeois organization of Russian society, which is
splitting the people into proletariat and bourgeoisie, and in the class
character of the Russian state, which is nothing but the organ of domina-
tion of the bourgeoisie, and that therefore the only way out lies in the class
* But perhaps here too Mr. Mikhailovsky may try to wriggle out of it by
declaring that he did not intend to say that there is no proletariat in Russia in
general, but only that there is no capitalist proletariat? Is that so? Then why
did you not say so? Why, the whole question is whether the Russian proletariat
is a proletariat characteristic of the bourgeois organization of social economy,
or of some other. Who is to blame if in the course of two whole articles you did
not say a word about this, the only serious and important question, but preferred
instead to jabber all sorts of nonsense and to blarney for all you are worth?
128 V. I. LENIN
struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie — these "friends of
tht people" begin to howl that the Social-Democrats want to deprive
the people of their land, that they want to destroy our people's economic
organization!
We now come to the most outrageous part of this whole indecent, to say
the least of it, "polemic," namely, Mr. Mikhailovsky 's ''criticism" (?)
of the political activities of the Social-Democrats. Everybody realizes
that the activities carried on among the workers by Socialists and agi-
tators cannot be honestly discussed in our legal press, and that the only
thing a self-respecting censored periodical can do in this connection is to
"maintain a tactful silence." Mr. Mikhailovsky has forgotten this most
elementary of rules and has not scrupled to take advantage of his monopoly
contact with the reading public in order to sling mud at the Socialists.
However, means of combating this unscrupulous critic will be found
even if outside of the legal publications.
"As I understand it," Mr. Mikhailovsky says with assumed
naivete, "the Russian Marxists can be divided into three cate-
gories: Marxist obsene s (who look on but take no part in the pro-
cess), passive Marxists (they only 'allay the pains of childbirth';
they 'are not interested in the people on the land, and direct their
attention and hopes to those who are already divorced from the
means of production'), and active Marxists (who bluntly insist
on the further ruin of the countryside)."
What is this! Mr. Critic must surely know that the Russian Marxists
are Socialists who take the view that the reality around us is a capitalist
society, and that there is only one way out of it — the class struggle of
the proletariat against the bourgeoisie? How, then, and on what grounds,
does he mix them up so with a sort of senseless vulgarity? What right
(moral, of course) has he to extend the term Marxists to people who
obviously do not accept the most elementary and fundamental tenets
of Marxism, people who have never and nowhere appeared as a distinct
group and have never and nowhere proclaimed a program of their own?
Mr. Mikhailovsky has left himself any number of loopholes for
justifying such monstrous methods.
"Perhaps," he says with the smartness and airiness of a society
• fop, "these ate not real Marxists, but they consider and pro-
claim themselves such."
Where have they proclaimed it, and when? In 'the liberal and radical
salons of St. Petersburg? In private . letters? Be it so. Well then, talk
to them in your salons and in your correspondence! But you come
out publicly and in print against people who have never come out
publicly anywhere (under the banner of Marxism). And you have the
effrontery to claim that you are arguing against "Social-Democrats,"
although you know that this name is borne only by one group of rev-
WHAT THE "FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE" ARE 129
olutionary Socialists, and that nobody else can be confused with
them.*
Mr. Mikhailovsky wriggles and squirms, like a schoolboy caught
*ed-handed: "I am not the least to blame here" — he tries to make
the reader believe — "I 'heard it with my own ears and saw it with my
own eyes.'" Excellent! We are quite willing to believe that there
is nobody in your field of vision but vulgarians and rascals. But what has
that to do with us, the Social-Democrats? Who does not know that "at the
present time, when" not only Socialist activity, but all social activity
that is at all independent and honest, is subject to political persecu-
tion— for every person actually working under one banner or another —
be it Narodovolism, Marxism, or even, let us say, constitutional-
ism— there are several score of phrasemongers who under that name
conceal their liberal cowardice, and, in addition, perhaps several down-
right rascals who are arranging their own shady affairs? Is it not obvious
that it requires the vilest kind of vulgarity to blame any of these
trends for the fact that its banner is being besmirched (privately
and on the quiet, at that) by every sort of riff-raff? Mr. Mikhailovsky 's
whole argument is one chain of distortions, mutilations and perver-
sions. We saw above that he completely distorted the "truths" on which
the Social-Democrats base themselves, presenting them in away in which
no Marxist has ever presented them, or could have presented them,
anywhere. And if he had set forth the actual conception which the Social-
Democrats have of Russian realities, he could not but have seen that one
can "conform" to these views only in one manner, namely, by helping
to develop the class consciousness of the proletariat, by organizing and
welding it for the political struggle against the present regime. He has,
however, one other trick up his sleeve. With an air of injured innocence
he pharisaically lifts up his eyes heavenward and unctuously declares:
"I am very glad to hear that. But I cannot understand what you
are protesting against [that is exactly what he says in Russkoye
Bogatstvo, No. 2]. Read my comment on passive Marxists more
* I shall dwell on at least one factual reference which occurs in Mr. Mikhai-
lovsky's article. Anybody who has read this article will have to admit that he
includes Mr. Skvortsov (the author of The Economic Causes of Starvation) among
the "Marxists." But, as a matter of fact, this gentleman does not call himself a
Marxist, and one needs only a most elementary acquaintance with the works of
the Social-Democrats to see that from their standpoint he is nothing but a vulgar
bourgeois. What sort of a Marxist is he when he does not understand that the
social environment for which he projects his progressive measures is a bourgeois
environment, and that therefore all "cultural improvements," which are indeed
to be observed even in peasant husbandry, are bourgeois progress, impro-
ving the position of a minority but proletarianizing the masses 1 What sort
of a Marxist Is he when he does not understand that the state to which he appeals
with his projects is a class state, capable only of supporting the bourgeoisie and
oppressing the proletariat I
9—686
130 y. I. LENIN
attentively and you will see that I say: from the ethical standpoint,,
no objection can be made."
This, too, of course, is nothing but a re-hash of his former wretched
subterfuges.
Tell us, please, how would the conduct of a person be characterized
who declared that he was criticizing social-revolutionary Narodism
(when no other had yet appeared — I take such a period), and who pro-
ceeded to say approximately the following:
"The Narodniks, as I understand it, are divided into three
categories: the consistent Narodniks, who completely accept the
ideas of the muzhik and, in exact accordance with his desires, would
make a general principle of the birch and wife-beating and generally
further the abominable policy of the government of the knout and
club, which, you know, has been called a narodnaya* policy; then, the
cowardly Narodniks, who are not interested in the opinions of the
muzhik, and are only striving to transplant to Russia an alien
revolutionary movement by means of associations and suchlike —
against which, however no objection can be made from the ethical
standpoint, unless it be the slipperiness of the path, which may easily
convert a cowardly Narodnik into a consistent or a courageous one;,
and, lastly, the courageous Narodniks, who carry out to the full
the narodny ideals of the thrifty muzhik, and accordingly settle
on the land in order to live as kulaks in good earnest."
All decent people, of course, would characterize this as vile and vul-
gar scoffing. And if, further, the person who said such things could not
be rebutted by the Narodniks in the same press; if, moreover >
the ideas of these Narodniks had hitherto been set forth only illegally,
so that many people had no exact conception of them and might easily
believe everything they were told about the Narodniks — then every-
body would agree that such a person is. ...
But perhaps Mr. Mikhailovsky himself has not yet quite forgotten^
the word that fits here.
But enough! Many similar insinuations by Mr. Mikhailovsky
remain. But I do not know of any labour more fatiguing, more thankless,.
more arduous than to have to wallow in this filth, to cull insin-
uations dispersed here and there, to compare them and to search for
at least one serious objection.
Enough 1
April 1894
Originally published
as a separate pamphlet in 1894
* I.e., people's— Ed.
THE TASKS OF THE RUSSIAN
The second half of the 'nineties is marked by an uncommonly height-
ened interest in the presentation and solution of problems of the Rus-
sian revolution. The appearance of a new revolutionary party, the "Na-
rodnoye Pravo" ("People's Rights"), the growing influence and suc-
cesses of the Social-Democrats, the evolution of the "Narodnaya Volya"
("People's Will"), all this has evoked a lively discussion on questions
of program in Socialist study circles— of intellectuals and of workers —
as well as in illegal literature. In connection with the latter, reference
should be made to An Urgent Question , and the Manifesto (1894) of the
"Narodnoye Pravo" Party, to the Leaflet of the "Narodnaya Volya"
Group, to the Rabotnik (The Worker) published abroad by the "League
of Russian Social-Democrats," to the growing activity in the publica-
tion of revolutionary pamphlets in Russia, principally for workers,
and the agitational activities of the Social-Democratic "League of Strug-
gle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" in St. Petersburg in con-
nection with the famous St. Petersburg strikes of 1896, etc.
At the present time (the end of 1897), the most urgent question, in
our opinion, is the question of the practical activities of the Social-
Democrats. We emphasize the practical side of Social-Democracy, because
its theoretical side apparently has already passed the most acute period
of stubborn non-comprehension on the part of its opponents, when strong
efforts were made to suppress the new trend as soon as it appeared, on
the one hand, and the stalwart defence of the principles of Social-De-
mocracy, on the other. Now, the main and fundamental features of the
theoretical views of the Social-Democrats have been sufficiently clari-
fied. This, however, cannot be said in regard to the practical side of
Social-Democracy, to its political program, its methods of activity, its
tactics. It is precisely in this sphere, it seems to us, that variance and
mutual misunderstanding prevail most, which prevents complete
rapprochement with Social-Democracy on the part of those revolution
aries who, in theory, have completely renounced the principles of the
"Narodnaya Volya," and, in practice, are either induced by the very
force of circumstances to begin to carry on propaganda and agitation
*fnong the workers and, even more than that, to organize their work among
«* 131
132 V. I. LENIN
the workers on the basis of the class struggle, or else strive to put demo-
cratic tasks at the basis of their whole program and revolutionary activ-
ities. Unless we are mistaken, the latter description applies to the two
revolutionary groups which are operating in Russia at the present
time, in addition to the Social-Democrats, viz., the followers of
"Narodnaya Volya" and the followers of "Narodnoye Pravo."
We think, therefore, that it is particularly opportune to try to explain
the practical tasks of the Social-Democrats and to give the reasons why
we think that their program is the most rational of the three programs
that have been presented, and why we think that the arguments that
have been advanced against it are based very largely on a misunder-
standing.
The object of the practical activities of the Social-Democrats is,
as is well known, to lead the class struggle of the proletariat and to organ-
ize that struggle in both its manifestations: Socialist (the struggle
against the capitalist class for the purpose of abolishing the class system
and organizing Socialist society) and democratic (the fight against
absolutism for the purpose of winning political liberty for Russia and the
democratization of the political and social system in Russia). We said
"as is well known" advisedly, for, indeed, from the very first moment
it arose as a separate social-revolutionary tendency, Russian Social-
Democracy has always definitely stated that this was the object of its
activities, has always emphasized the dual character and content of
the class struggle of the proletariat and has always insisted on the insep-
arable connection between its Socialist and democratic tasks — a con-
nection which is strikingly expressed in the name which it has adopted.
Nevertheless, to this day, Socialists are often to be encountered who have
a most distorted conception of the Social-Democrats and charge them
with ignoring the political struggle, etc. We will try, therefore, to de-
scribe both sides of the practical activity of Russian Social-Democracy.
We will begin with Socialist activity. One would have thought that
the character of Social-Democratic activity in this respect would have
become quite clear since the Social-Democratic "League of Struggle
for the Emancipation of the Working Class" in St. Petersburg began its
activities among the St. Petersburg workers. The Socialist work of Rus-
sian Social-Democrats consists of propagating the doctrines of scientific
Socialism, of spreading among the workers a proper understanding
of the present social and economic system, its foundations and its
development, an understanding of the various classes in Russian society,
of the mutual relations between these classes, the struggle between them,
of the role of the working class in this struggle, the attitude of this class
towards the declining and developing classes, towards the past and the
future of capitalism, of the historical task of international Social-
Democracy and of the Russian working class. Inseparably connected with
propaganda is agitation among the workers, which naturally comes to
TASKS OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 133
the forefront in the present political conditions in Russia, and with
the present level of development of the masses of workers. Agitating
among the workers means that the Social-Democrats take part in all
the spontaneous manifestations of the struggle of the working class,
in all the conflicts between the workers and the capitalists over the
working day, wages, conditions of labour, etc. Our task is to merge
our activities with the practical everyday questions of working-class
life, to help the workers to understand these questions, to draw the
attention of the workers to the most important abuses, to help them to
formulate their demands to the employers more precisely and practically, to
develop among the workers a sense of solidarity, to help them to understand
the common interests and the common cause of all the Russian workers
as a single class representing part of the international army of the pro-
letariat. To organize study circles for workers, to establish proper and
secret connections between these and the central group of Social-Democrats,
to publish and distribute literature for workers, to organize correspon-
dence from all centres of the labour movement, to publish agitational
leaflets and manifestos and to distribute them, and to train a corps of
experienced agitators — such, in the main, are the manifestations of the
Socialist activity of Russian Social-Democracy.
Our work is primarily and mainly concentrated on the urban factory
workers. The Russian Social-Democrats must not dissipate their forces;
they must concentrate their activities among the industrial proletariat,
which is most capable of imbibing Social-Democratic ideas, is the most
developed class intellectually and politically, and the most important
from the point of view of numbers and concentration in the important
political centres of the country. Hence, the creation of a durable revolu-
tionary organization among the factory, the urban workers, is one of
the first and urgent tasks that confronts the Social-Democrats, and it
would be very unwise indeed to allow ourselves to be diverted from this
task at the present time. But, while recognizing that it is important to
concentrate our forces on the factory workers and decry the dissipation
of forces, we do not for a moment suggest that the Russian Social-Demo-
crats should ignore other strata of the Russian proletariat and the work-
ing class. Nothing of the kind. The very conditions of life of the Russian
factory workers compel them very often to come into very close contact
with the handicraftsmen, i.e., the industrial proletariat outside of the
factory, who are scattered in the towns and villages and whose conditions
are infinitely worse than those of the factory workers. The Russian factory
workers also come into direct contact with the rural population (very
often the factory worker has his family in the country) and, consequently,
cannot but come into contact with the rural proletariat, with the vast
mass of professional agricultural labourers and day labourers, and also
with those ruined peasants who, while clinging to their miserable plots
of land are engaged in working to pay the rent (otrabotki) and in casual
184 V. L LENIN
employment, which is also wage labour. The Russian Social-Democrats
think it inopportune to send their forces among the handicraftsmen and
rural labourers, but they do not intend to leave them uncared for; they
will try to enlighten the advanced workers on questions affecting the
lives of the handicraftsmen and rural labourers, so that when they come
into contact with the more backward strata of the proletariat they will
imbue them'with the ideas of the class struggle, of Socialism, of the
political tasks of Russian democracy in general and of the Russian proleta-
riat in particular. It would not be practical to send agitators among the han-
dicraftsmen and rural labourers when there is still so much work to be done
among the urban factory workers, but in a large number of cases Socialist
workers involuntarily come in to con tact with these rural artisans and they
must be able to take advantage of these opportunities and understand the
general tasks of Social-Democracy in Russia. Hence, those who accuse the
Russian Social-Democrats of being narrow-minded, of trying to ignore
the mass of the labouring population and to interest themselves entirely
in the factory workers, are profoundly mistaken. On the contrary, agi-
tation among the advanced strata of the proletariat is the surest and
only way to rouse (in proportion as the movement expands) the whole
of the Russian proletariat. By spreading Socialism and the ideas of the
class struggle among the urban workers, we shall inevitably cause these
ideas to flow in the smaller and more scattered channels. To achieve
this, however, it is necessary that these ideas shall become deep-rooted
in better prepared soil, and that this vanguard of the Russian labour
movement and of the Russian revolution shall be thoroughly imbued
with them. Waile conceitrating its forces among the factory workers,
the Russian Social-Democrats are prepared to support those Russian
revolutionaries who, in practice, are beginning to base their Socialist
work on the class struggle of the proletariat; but they make no attempt
to conceal the fact that practical alliances with other factions of revolu-
tionaries cannot and must not lead to compromises or concessions on
matters of theory, program or banner. Convinced that the only revolu-
tionary theory that can serve as the banner of the revolutionary move-
ment at the present time is the theory of scientific Socialism and the class
struggle, the Russian Social-Democrats will exert every effort to spread
this theory, to guard against its false interpretation, and will combat
every attempt to bind the young labour movement in Russia with less
definite doctrines. Theoretical reasoning proves and the practical activ-
ity of the Sochi -Democrats shows that all Socialists in Russia should
become Social- Democrats.
We will now deal with the democratic tasks and with the democratic
work of the Social-Democrats. We repeat, once again, that this work
is inseparably connected with Socialist work. In carrying on propaganda
among the workers, the Social-Democrats cannot ignore political ques-
tions and they would regard any attempt to ignore them or even to push
TASKS OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 135
them into the background as a profound mistake and a departure from1
the fundamental principles of international Social-Democracy. Simul-
taneously with propaganda in favour of scientific Socialism, the Russian
Social-Democrats consider it to be their task to carry on propaganda
among the working-class masses in favour of democratic ideas , to spread
an understanding of what absolutism means in all its manifestations,
its class content, the necessity for overthrowing it, of the impossibility'
of waging a successful struggle for the cause of labour without achieving
political liberty and the democratization of the political and social
system of Russia. In carrying on agitation among the workers concerning
their immediate economic demands, the Social-Democrats link this up
with agitation concerning the immediate political needs, grievances and
demands of the working class, agitation against the tyranny of the police,
which manifests itself in every strike, in every conflict between the work-
ers and the capitalists, agitation against the restriction of the rights
of the workers as Russian citizens in general and as the most oppressed
and most disfranchised class in particular, agitation against every pro-
minent representative and flunkey of absolutism who comes into direct
contact with the workers and who clearly reveals to the working class
its state of political slavery. Just as there is not a question affecting the
economic life of the workers that cannot be utilized for the purpose of
economic agitation, so there is not a political question that cannot serve
as a subject for political agitation. These two forms of agitation are in-
separably bound up with each other in the activities of the Social-Demo-
crats like the two sides of a medal. Both economic and political agita-
tion are equally necessary for the development of the class consciousness
of the proletariat, and economic and political agitation are equally
necessary in order to guide the class struggle of the Russian workers, for
every class struggle is a political struggle. Both forms of agitation, by
awakening class consciousness among the workers, by organizing them
and disciplining and training them for united action and for the struggle
for the ideals of Social-Democracy, will give the workers the opportunity
to test their strength on immediate questions and immediate needs, will
enable them to force their enemy to make partial concessions, to improve
their economic conditions, will compel the capitalists to reckon with the
organized might of the workers, compel the government to give the work-
ers more rights, to give heed to their demands, keep the government in,
constant fear of the hostile temper of the masses of the workers led by
a strong Social-Democratic organization.
We have shown that there is an inseparable connection between So-
cialist and democratic propaganda and agitation and that revolutionary
work in both spheres runs parallel. Nevertheless, there is an important
difference between these two forms of activity and struggle. The differ-
ence is that, in the economic struggle, the proletariat stands absolutely
alone against the landed nobility and the bourgeoisie, except for the
V. I. LENIN
help it receives (and then not always) from those elements of the petty
bourgeoisie which gravitate towards the proletariat. In the democratic,
the political struggle, however, the Russian working class does not stand
alone; all the political opposition elements, strata of the population, and
classes, which are hostile to absolutism and fight against it in one form
or another, are taking their place by its side. Side by side with the pro-
letariat stand, all the opposition elements of the bourgeoisie, or of the
educated classes, or of the petty bourgeoisie, or of the nationalities, or
religions and sects, etc., etc., which are persecuted by the absolutist
government. The question naturally arises, 1) what should be the attitude
of the working class towards these elements, and 2) should it not com-
bine with them in the common struggle against absolutism? All Social-
Democrats admit that the political revolution in Russia must precede
the Socialist revolution; should they not therefore combine with all the
elements in the political opposition to fight against absolutism and put
Socialism in the background for the time being? Is not this essential in
order to strengthen the fight against absolutism?
We will examine these two questions.
The attitude of the working class, as the fighter against absolutism,
toward all the other social classes and groups that are in the political
opposition is precisely determined by the fundamental principles of
Social-Democracy as expounded in the famous Communist Manifesto.
The Social-Democrats support the progressive social classes against the
reactionary classes, the bourgeoisie against representatives of privi-
leged and feudal landownership and the bureaucracy, the big bourgeoisie
against the reactionary strivings of the petty bourgeoisie. This support
does not presuppose, and does not require, any compromise with non-So-
cial-Democratic programs and principles — it is support given to an ally
against a particular enemy. Moreover, the Social-Democrats render this
support in order to accelerate the fall of the common enemy; they do
not expect anything for themselves from these temporary allies, and con-
cede nothing to them. The Social-Democrats support every revolutionary
movement against the present social system, they support all oppressed
peoples, persecuted religions, oppressed estates, etc., in their fight for
equal rights.
Support for all political opposition elements will be expressed in the
propaganda of the Social-Democrats by the fact that in showing that
absolutism is hostile to the cause of labour, they will show that abso-
lutism is hostile to the various other social groups; they will show that
the working class is with these groups on this or that question, on this
or that task, etc. In their agitation this support will express itself in that
the Social-Democrats will take advantage of every manifestation of the
police tyranny of absolutism to point out to the workers how this tyran-
ny affects all Russian citizens generally, and the representatives of the
particularly oppressed estates, nationalities, religions, sects, etc., ia
TASKS OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 137
particular, and especially how that tyranny affects the working class.
Finally, in practice, this support is expressed in that the Russian
Social-Democrats are prepared to enter into alliance with revolutionaries
of other trends for the purpose of achieving certain partial aims, and this
preparedness has been proved on more than one occasion.
This brings us to the second question. While pointing out that one or
other of the various opposition groups are in unison with the workers,,
the Social-Democrats will always put the workers in a special category,,
they will always point out that the alliance is temporary and condi-
tional, they will always emphasize the special class position of the pro-
letariat which to-morrow may be the opponent of its allies of today.
We may be told: "this may weaken all the fighters of political liberty
at the present time." Our reply will be: this will strengthen all the fighters,
for political liberty. Only those fighters are strong who rely on the appre-
ciation of the real interests of definite classes, and any attempt to obscure
these class interests, which already play a predominant role in modern
society, will only serve to weaken the fighters. That is the first point.
The second point is that in the struggle against the autocracy the work-
ing class must single itself out from the rest, for it alone is the truly
consistent and unreserved enemy of absolutism, it is only between the
working class and absolutism that compromise is impossible, only in
the working class has democracy a champion without reservations, who
does not waver, who does not look back. The hostility of all other classes,,
groups and strata of the population towards the autocracy is not absolute;
their democracy always looks back. The bourgeoisie cannot but realize
that industrial and social development is retarded by absolutism, but
it fears the complete democratization of the political and social system
and may at any time enter into alliance with absolutism against the pro-
letariat. The petty bourgeoisie is two-faced by its very nature; on the
one hand it gravitates towards the proletariat and democracy; on the
other hand it gravitates towards the reactionary classes, tries to hold up
the march of history, is likely to be caught by the experiments and flirta-
tions of absolutism (for example, the "people's politics" of Alexander III),
is likely to conclude an alliance with the ruling classes against the pro-
letariat in order to strengthen its own position as a class of small property
owners. Educated people, and the "intelligentsia" generally, cannot but
rise against the savage police tyranny of absolutism, which persecutes
thought and knowledge; but the material interests of this intelligentsia
tie it to absolutism and the bourgeoisie, compel it to be inconsistent^
to enter into compromises, to sell its oppositional and revolutionary
fervour for an official job, or a share in profits and dividends. As for the
democratic elements among the oppressed nationalities and the persecuted
religions, everybody knows and sees that the class antagonisms within
these categories of the population are much more profound and power-
ful than is the solidarity among all classes in these categories against
138 V. I. LENIN
absolutism and for democratic institutions. The proletariat alone can
be — and because of its class position cannot but be — consistently
democratic, the determined enemy of absolatism, incapable of making
any concessions, or of entering into any compromises. The proletariat
alone can act as the vanguard in the fight for political liberty and for
•democratic institutions, firstly, because political tyranny affects the
proletariat fnost; for there is nothing in the position of that class that
can in any way ameliorate this tyranny; it has no access to the higher
authorities, not even to the officials; it has no influence on public opin-
ion. Secondly, the proletariat alone is capable of bringing about the
complete democratization of the political and social system, because such
democratization would place the system in the hands of the workers.
That is why the merging of the democratic activities of the working class
«with the democratic aspirations of the other classes and groups would
weaken the forces of the democratic movement, would weaken the polit-
ical struggle, would make it less determined, less consistent, more
likely to compromise. On the other hand, if the working class is singled out
as the vanguard in the fight for democratic institutions, it will strengthen
the democratic movement, will 8 rengthe <, the struggle for political lib-
erty, for the working class will stimulate all the other democratic and
political opposition elements, will push the 1 berals towards the political
radicals, it will push the radicals towards an irrevocable rupture with
the whole of the political and social structure of present society. We
said above that all Medalists in Russia should become Social- Democrats.
We will now add: all true and consistent democrats in Russia should
become Social- Democrats.
To illustrate what we mean we will quote the following example.
Take the civil service officials, tjbe bureaucracy, as representing a class
of persons who specialize in administrative work and occupy a privi-
leged position compared with the people. Everywhere, from autocratic
and semi-Asiatic Russia to cultured, free and civilized England, we see
this institution, representing an essential organ of bourgeois society.
Fully corresponding to the backwardness of Russia and its absolute
monarchy are the complete lack of rights of the people before the officials,
and the complete absence of control over the privileged bureaucracy. In
England there is powerful popular control over the administration, but
«ven there that control is far from being complete^ even there the bureau-
cracy has managed to retain not a few of its privileges, is not infrequently
the master and not the servant of the people. Even in England we see
that powerful social groups support the privileged position of the bu-
reaucracy and hinder the complete democratization of this institution.
Why? Because it is in the interests of the proletariat alone to completely >
•democratize it; the most progressive strata of the bourgeoisie defend
certain of the prerogatives of the bureaucracy, protest against the elec-
tion of all officials, against the complete abolition of the property quali-
TASKS OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 139
fications, against making officials directly responsible to the people, etc.,
because these strata realize that the proletariat will take advantage of
complete democratization in order to use it against the bourgeoisie. This
is the case also in Russia. Numerous and varied strata of the Russian
people are opposed to the omnipotent, irresponsible, corrupt, savage,
ignorant and parasitic Russian bureaucracy, but, except for the prole-
tariat, not one of these strata would agree to the complete democrati-
zation of the bureaucracy, because all these strata (bourgeoisie, petty
bourgeoisie, the "intelligentsia" generally) have some connections with
the bureaucracy, because all these strata are kith and kin of the Russian
bureaucracy. Everyone knows how easy it is in Holy Russia for a radical
intellectual or Socialist intellectual to become transformed into a civil
servant of the Imperial Government, a civil servant who salves his con-
science with the thought that he will "do good" within the limits of
office routine, a bureaucrat who pleads this "good" in justification of
his political indifference, his servility towards the government of the
knout and nagaika. The proletariat alone is unreservedly hostile towards
absolutism and to the Russian bureaucracy, the proletariat alone has
no connections with these organs of aristocratic bourgeois society, the pro-
letariat alone is capable of entertaining irreconcilable hostility towards
and of waging a determined struggle against it.
In advancing our argument that the proletariat, led in its class strug-
gle by Social-Democracy, is the vanguard of Russian democracy, we en-
counter the very widespread and very strange opinion that Russian
Social-Democracy puts political questions and the political struggle in
the background. As we see, this opinion is the very opposite of the truth.
How is this astonishing failure to understand the principles of Social-
Democracy, which have been so often enunciated and which were enun-
ciated in the very first Russian Social-Democratic publications, in the
pamphlets and books published abroad by the "Emancipation of Labour**
group, to be explained? In our opinion, this astonishing fact is to be
explained by the following three circumstances:
First, the general failure of the representatives of old revolutionary
theories to understand the principles of Social-Democracy because they
are accustomed to build up their programs and plans of activity on the
basis of abstract ideas and not on the basis of an exact calculation of
the real classes operating in the country and placed by history in cer-
tain relationships. It is precisely the lack of such a realistic discussion
of the interests that support Russian democracy that could give rise to
the opinion that Russian Social-Democracy leaves the democratic tasks
of the Russian revolutionaries in the shade.
Second, the failure to understand that by uniting economic and po-
litical questions and Socialist and democratic activities into one whole,
into the single class struggle of the proletariat, the democratic movement
and the political struggle are not weakened, but strengthened, that it
HO V. 1. LENIN
is brought closer to the real interests of the masses of the people; for
political questions are thereby dragged out of the "stuffy studies of the
intelligentsia" into the street, among the workers and labouring classes;
the abstract ideas of political oppression are thereby translated into the
real manifestations of this oppression from which the proletariat suffers
most of all, and on the basis of which the Social-Democrats carry on
their agitatibn. Very often it seems to the Russian radical that instead
of calling upon the advanced workers to join the political struggle, the
Social-Democrat points to the task of developing the labour movement,
of organizing the class struggle and thereby retreats from democracy,
pushes the political struggle into the background. If this is retreat it is
the kind of retreat that is meant in the French proverb: II faut recuhr
pour mieux sauterl*
Third, this misunderstanding arose from the fact that the very term
"political struggle" means something different to the followers of
"Narodnaya Volya" and "Narodnoye Pravo" from what it means to the
Social-Democrat. The Social-Democrats conceive the political struggle
differently from the way it is conceived by the representatives of the old
revolutionary theories; their conception of it is much broader. A striking
illustration of this seeming paradox is provided by Narodnaya Volya
Leaflet, No. 4, Dec. 9, 1895. While heartily welcoming this publica-
tion, which testifies to the profound and fruitful thinking that is
going on among the modern followers of "Narodnaya Volya,"
we cannot refrain from mentioning P. L. Lavrov's article, Program Ques-
tions (pp. 19-22), which strikingly reveals another conception of the
political struggle entertained by the old-style followers of "Narodnaya
Volya/'** "Here," writes P. L. Lavrov, speaking of the relations between
the "Narodnaya Volya" program, and the Social-Democratic program,
"one thing and one thing alone is material, viz., is it possible to organize
a strong workers' party under absolutism apart from a revolutionary
party which is directed against absolutism?" (p. 21, col. 2); also a little
before that (in col. 1): ". . . to organize a Russian Workers ' Party under
the reign of absolutism without at the same time organizing a revolution-
ary party against this absolutism." We totally fail to understand these
distinctions which seem to be of such cardinal importance to P. L. Lav-
rov. What? A "Workers' Party apart from a revolutionary party which is
directed against absolutism?" But is not a workers' party a revolu-
tionary party? Is it not directed against absolutism? This queer argument
* Retreat in order to leap further forward.
** P. L. Lavrov's article in No. 4 is, iri fact, only an "excerpt" from a long
letter written by him for Materials. We have heard that this letter was published
abroad in full this summer (1897) as well as a reply by Plekhanov. We have seen
neither the one nor the other. Nor do we know whether Narodnaya Volya Leaflet
No. 5, in which the editors promised to publish an editorial article on P. L. Lav-
rov** letter, has been published yet. Cf. No. 4, p. 22, col. 1, footnote.
TASKS OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 141
is explained in the following passage in P. L. Lavrov's article: "A Rus-
sian Workers' Party will have to be organized under the conditions of
absolutism with all its charms. If the Social-Democrats succeed in doing
this without at the same time organizing a political conspiracy* against
absolutism, with all the conditions of such a conspiracy,* then, of course,
their political program would be a fit and proper program for Russian
Socialists; for the emancipation of the workers by the efforts of the work-
ers themselves would then be achieved. But this is very doubtful, if
not impossible." (P. 21, col. l.)That is the whole point! To the follow-
ers of "Narodnaya Volya," the term, political struggle, is synonymous
with political conspiracy 1 It must be confessed that in these words P. L.
Lavrov has managed to display in striking relief the fundamental differ-
ence between the tactics in political struggle adopted by the followers
of "Narodnaya Volya" and those adopted by the Social-Democrats. The
traditions of Blanquism, of conspiracies, are very strong among the follow-
ers of "Narodnaya Volya," so much so that they cannot conceive the
political struggle except in the form of political conspiracy. The Social-
Democrats do not hold to such a narrow point of view; they do not believe
in conspiracies; they think that the period of conspiracies has long
passed away, that to reduce the political struggle to a conspiracy means
to restrict its scope greatly, on the one hand, and, on the other hand,
it means selecting the most inefficient method of struggle. Everyone will
understand that P. L. Lavrov's remark, that "the Russian Social-Demo-
crats take the activities of the West as an unfailing model" (p. 21, col. 1)
is nothing more than a debating trick, for as a matter of fact Russian
Social-Democrats have never forgotten the political conditions that pre-
vail in Russia, they have never dreamed of being able to form an open
workers' party in Russia, they have never separated the task of fighting
for Socialism from the task of fighting for political liberty. But they have
always thought, and continue to think, that this fight must be waged
not by conspirators, but by a revolutionary party that is based on the
labour movement. They think that the fight against absolutism must be
waged not in the form of plots, but by educating, disciplining and organ-
izing the proletariat, by political agitation among the workers, which
shall denounce every manifestation of absolutism, which will pillory
all the knights of the police government and will compel this government
to make concessions. Is this not precisely the kind of activity the
St. Petersburg "League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working
Class" is carrying on? Does not this organization represent the embryo of
a revolutionary party based on the labour movement, which leads the
class struggle of the proletariat against capital and against the absolut-
ist government without hatching any plots, and which derives its strength
from the combination of the Socialist struggle with the democratic
*Our italics.
142 V. I. LENIN
struggle into a single, indivisible class struggle of the St. Petersburg
proletariat? Have not the activities of the "League" shown, notwithstand-
ing the brief period they have been carried on, that the proletariat led
by Social-Democracy represents an important political force with which
the government is already compelled to reckon and to which it hastens
to make concessions? The haste with which the Act of June 2, 1897,* was
passed and the content of that Act reveal its significance as a forced con^
cession to the proletariat, as a position won from the enemy of the RusT
sian people. This concession is a concession only in miniature, the posi-
tion won is only a very small one, but remember that the working-class
organization that succeeded in obtaining this concession is neither very
broad nor stable, nor of long standing, nor rich in experience and resources.
As is well known, the "League of Struggle" was formed only in 1895-96,
and the only way it has been able to appeal to the workers has been in
the form of mimeographed or lithographed leaflets. Can it be denied that
an organization like this, uniting at least the important centres of the
labour movement in Russia (the St. Petersburg, Moscow and Vladimir
areas, the southern area, and also the most important towns like Odessa,
Kiev, Saratov, etc.), having at its disposal a revolutionary organ and
possessing as much authority among the Russian workers as the "League
of Struggle" has among the St. Petersburg workers — can it be denied that
such an organization would be a very important political factor in con-
temporary Russia, a factor that the government would have to reckon
with in its home and foreign policy? By leading the class struggle of the
proletariat, developing organization and discipline among the workers,
helping them to fight for their immediate economic needs and to win po-
sition after position from capital, by politically educating the workers
and systematically and unswervingly pursuing absolutism and making
life a torment for every tsarist bashi-bazouk who makes the proletariat
feel the heavy paw of the police government — such an organization would
at one and the same time adapt itself to the conditions under which we
would have to form a workers ' party and be a powerful revolutionary party
directed against absolutism. To discuss beforehand what methods this
organization is to resort to in order to deliver a smashing blow at absolu-
tism, whether, for example, it would prefer rebellion, or a mass political
strike or some other form of attack, to discuss these things before-
hand and to decide this question now would be empty doctriT
nairism. It would be behaving like generals who called a council
of war before they had recruited their army, had mobilized it, and
before they had begun the campaign against the enemy. When the
army of the proletariat unswervingly, under the leadership of a strong
Social-Democratic organization, fights for its economic and political
* The Act of June 2, 1897 restricted the working day to ll1/, hours and intro*
duced a compulsory Sunday holiday. Lenin analysed this Act in detail in his
pamphlet The New Factory Act. — Ed.
TASKS OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS
emancipation, that army will itself indicate to the generals the methods
and means of action. Then, and then only, will it be possible to decide
the question of delivering a smashing blow against absolutism; for the prob-
lem depends on the state of the labour movement, on its dimensions,,
on the methods of struggle developed by the movement, on the character
of the revolutionary organization that is leading the movement, on the
attitude of other social elements towards the proletariat and towards-
absolutism, on the state of home and foreign politics — in short, it
depends on a thousand and one things which cannot be determined and
which it would be useless to determine beforehand.
That is why the following argument by P. L. Lavrov is also unfair:
"If they [the Social-Democrats] have, somehow or other, not
only to group the forces of labour for the struggle against capital, but
also to rally revolutionary individuals and groups against absolu-
tism, then the Russian Social-Democrats will in fact" (author's ital-
ics) "adopt the program of their opponents, the 'Narodnaya Volya'-
ites, no matter what they may call themselves. Differences of opinion
concerning the village commune, the destiny of capitalism in Russia
and economic materialism are very unimportant matters of detail,,
as far as real business is concerned, which either facilitate or hinder
the solution of individual problems, individual methods of preparing
the main points, but nothing more." (Page 21, col. 1.)
It seems funny to have to enter into an argument about that last postu-
late: that difference of opinion on the fundamental questions of Russian life
and of the development of Russian society, on the fundamental questions
of the conception of history, may seem to be only matters of "detail"! Long
ago it was said that without a revolutionary theory there can be no revo-
lutionary movement, and it is hardly necessary to prove this truth at the
present time. The theory of the class struggle, the materialist conception of
Russian history and the materialist appreciation of the present economic
and political situation in Russia, the recognition of the necessity to reduce
the revolutionary struggle to the definite interests of a definite class and to
analyse its relation to other classes — to describe these great revolutionary
questions as "details" is so utterly wrong and comes so unexpectedly from a
veteran of revolutionary theory that we are almost prepared to regard this
passage as a lapsus.* As for the first part of the tirade quoted above, its un-
fairness is still more astonishing. To state in print that the Russian Social-
Democrats only group the forces of labour for the purpose of fighting against
capital (i.e., only for the economic struggle!) and that they do not rally
revolutionary individuals and groups for the struggle against absolutism
implies either that the one who makes such a statement does not know the
generally known facts about the activities of the Russian Social-Democrats
• A slip.— Ed.
144 V. I. LENIW
or that he does not want to know them. Or perhaps P. L. Lavfov does not
regard the Social-Democrats who are carrying on practical work in Russia
as "revolutionary individuals" and "revolutionary groups"?! Or (and this,
perhaps, is more likely) when he says, "struggle" against .absolutism, does
lie mean only hatching plots against absolutism? (Of. p. 21, col. 2: "... it
is a matter of ... organizing a revolutionary plot," our italics.) Perhaps,
in P. L. Lavrov 's opinion, those who do not engage in political plotting
are not engaged in the political struggle? We repeat once again: opinions
like these fully correspond to the ancient traditions of ancient "Narodnaya
Volya"-ism, but they certainly do not correspond either to modern con-
ceptions of the political struggle or to present-day conditions.
We have still to say a few words about the followers of <cNarodnoye
Pravo." P. L. Lavrov is quite right, in our opinion, when he says that the
Social-Deiftocrats "recommend the 'Narodnoye Pravo '-ites as being more
frank," and that they are "prepared to support them without, however,
merging with them" (p. 19, col. 2); he should have added however: as frank-
er democrats, and to the extent tfuit the "Narodnoye Pravo"-ites come out
as consistent democrats. Unfortunately, this condition is more in the na-
ture of the desired future than the actual present. The "Narodnoye Pravo"-
ites expressed a desire to free the tasks of democracy from Narodism and
from the obsolete forms of "Russian Socialism" generally; but they them-
selves have not yet been freed from old prejudices by a long way; and they
proved to be far from consistent when they described their party, which is
exclusively a Party for political reforms, as a "social [??!] revolutionary"
party (cf. their Manifesto dated February 19, .1894), and declared in
their manifesto that the term "people's rights" implies also the organiza-
tion of "people's industry" (we are obliged to quote from memory) and thus
introduced, on the sly, Narodnik prejudices. Hence, P. L. Lavrov was not
altogether wrong wten he described them as "masquerade politicians."
(P. 20, col. 2.) But perhaps it would be fairer to regard **Narodnoye Pravo"-
ism as a transitional doctrine, to the credit of which it must be said that it
was ashamed of the native Narodnik doctrines and openly entered into po-
lemics against those abominable Narodnik reactionaries who, in the face
of the police-ridden class government of the autocracy, have the impudence
to speak of economic, and not political, reforms being desirable. (Cf. An
Urgent Question, published by the "Narodnoye Pravo" Party.) If, indeed,
the "Narodnoye Pravo" Party does not contain anybody except ex-So-
cialists who conceal their Socialist banner on the plea of tactical considera-
tions, and who merely don the mask of non-Socialist politicians (as P. L.
Lavrov assumes, p. 20, col. 2) — then, of course, that party has no future
whatever. If, however, there are in the party not masquerade, but real non-
Socialist politicians, non-Socialist democrats, then this party can do not
a little good by striving to draw closer to the political opposition elements
among our bourgeoisie, striving to arouse political consciousness among
our petty bourgeoisie, small shopkeepers, small artisans, etc. — the class
TASKS OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 14B
which, everywhere in Western Europe, played apart in the democratic
movement and which, in Russia, has made particularly rapid progress in cul-
tural and other respects in the post- Reform epoch, and which cannot avoid
feeling the oppression of the police government and its cynical support of
the big factory owners, the financial and industrial monopolist magnates.
All that is required is that the "Narodnoye Pravo"-ites make it their task
to draw closer to various strata of the population and not confine them-
selves to the "intelligentsia" whose impotence, owing to their isolation from
the real interests of the masses, is even admitted in An Urgent Question.
For this it is necessary that the "Narodnoye Pravo"-ites abandon all as-
pirations to merge heterogeneous social elements and to eliminate Social-
ism from political tasks, that they abandon that false pride which pre-
vents them from drawing closer to the bourgeois strata of the population,
i.e., that they not only talk about a program for non-Socialist politicians,
but act in accordance with such a program, that they rouse and develop the
class consciousness of those social groups and classes for whom Socialism is
quite unnecessary, but who, as time goes on, more and more feel the
oppression of absolutism and realize the necessity for political liberty.
Russian Social-Democracy is still very young. It is but just emerging
from its embryonic state in which theoretical questions predominated. It
is but just beginning to develop its practical activity. Instead of criticiz-
ing the Social-Democratic theory and program, revolutionaries in other
factions must of necessity criticize the practical activities of the Russian
Social-Democrats. And it must be admitted that the criticism of the practi-
cal activities differs very sharply from the criticism of theory, so much so,
in fact, that the comical rumour went round that the St. Petersburg "League
of Struggle" is not a Social-Democratic organization. The very fact that such
a rumour could be floated shows how unfounded is the charge, that is being
bandied about, that the Social-Democrats ignore the political struggle. The
very fact that such a rumour could be floated shows that many revolution-
aries who could not be convinced by the theory held by the Social-Dem-
ocrats are beginning to be convinced by their practice.
Russian Social-Democracy has still an enormous field of work open before
it that has hardly been touched yet. The awakening of the Russian work-
ing class, its spontaneous striving after knowledge, unity, Socialism, for
the struggle against its exploiters and oppressors, become more strikingly
revealed every day. The enormous success which Russian capitalism has
achieved in recent times serves as a guarantee that the labour movement
will grow uninterruptedly in breadth and depth. Apparently, we are now
passing through theperiod in the capitalist cycle when industry is "flourish-
ing," when business is brisk, when the factories are working to full capac-
ity and when new factories, new enterprises, new joint-stock companies,
10-685
146
V. I. LENIN
railway enterprises, etc., etc., spring up like mushrooms. But one need not
be a prophet to be able to foretell the inevitable crash (more or less sudden)
that must succeed this period of industrial "prosperity." This crash will
cause the ruin of masses of small masters, will throw masses of workers into
the ranks of the unemployed, and will thus confront all the masses of the
workers in an acute form with the questions of Socialism and democracy
which have already confronted every class-conscious and thinking worker.
The Russian Social-Democrats must see to it that when the crash comes the
Russian proletariat is more class conscious, more united, able to understand
the tasks of the Russian working class, capable of putting up resistance
against the capitalist class — which is now reaping a rich harvest of profits
and which always strives to throw the burden of the losses upon the workers
— and capable of taking the lead of Russian democracy in the resolute strug-
gle against the police absolutism which fetters the Russian workers and the
whole of the Russian people.
And so, to work, comrades! Let us not lose precious time! The Russian
Social-Democrats have much to do to meet the requirements of the awaken-
ing proletariat, to organize the labour movement, to strengthen the revo-
lutionary groups and their contacts with each other, to supply the workers
with propaganda and agitational literature, and to unite the workers' cir-
cles and Social-Democratic groups scattered all over Russia into a single
Social- Democratic Labour Party \
Originally published
as a separate pamphlet
in Geneva, 1898
THE FORMATION OF THE RUSSIAN
SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY
APPEARANCE OF THE BOLSHEVIK
AND THE MENSHEVIK GROUPS
WITHIN THE PARTY
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
BURNING QUESTIONS OF OUR MOVEMENT
"...PARTY STRUGGLES LEND A PARTY
STRENGTH AND VITALITY; THE BEST PROOF
OF THE WEAKNESS or A PARTY is THE DIF-
FUSENESS AND THE BLURRING OF CLEARLT
DEFINED BOUNDARIES, A PARTY BECOMES
STRONGER BY PURGING ITSELF....**
(From a letter by Lassalle to Marx, June 24,
1852.)
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
According to the author's original plan, the present pamphlet was to
have been devoted to a detailed development of the ideas expressed in the
article "Where To Begin" (Iskra, No. 4, May 1901). * And we must first of
all apologize to the reader for the delay in fulfilling the promise made in
that article (and repeated in replies to many private inquiries and letters).
One of the reasons for this delay was the attempt made last June (1901) to
unite all the Social-Democratic organizations abroad. It was natural to
wait for the results of this attempt, for if it were successful it would per-
haps have been necessary to expound Iskra's views on organization from
a rather different point of view; and in any case, such a success promised
to put a very early end to the existence of two separate trends in the Russian
Social-Democratic movement. As the reader knows, the attempt failed, and,
as we shall try to show herein, was bound to fail after the new swing of Ra-
bocheye Dyelo, in its issue No. 10, towards Economism. It proved absolute-
ly essential to commence a determined fight against this diffuse and ill-
defined, but very persistent trend, which might spring up again in diverse
forms. Accordingly, the original plan of the pamphlet was changed and very
considerably enlarged.
Its main theme was to have been the three questions raised in the article
"Where To Begin" — viz., the character and substance of our political agi-
* S«e Lenir, Selected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. II, pp. 15-23.— Ed.
149
150 V. I. LENIN
tation, our organizational tasks, and the plan for building, simultaneously
and from various ends, a militant, country-wide organization. These ques-
tions have long engaged the mind of the author, who already tried to raise
them in Rabochaya Oaze la* during one of the unsuccessful attempts to re-
vive that paper (see Chap. V). But the original plan to confine this pam-
phlet to an analysis of these three questions and to express our views as far as
possible In a positive form, without entering at all, or entering very little,
into polemics, proved quite impracticable for two reasons. One was that
Economism proved to be much more tenacious than we had supposed (we
employ the term Economism in the broad sense, as explained in Iskra,
No. 12 [December 1901], in an article entitled "A Conversation with
the Advocates of Economism," which was a synopsis, so to speak, of
the present pamphlet.**) It became clear beyond doubt that the
differences regarding the answers to these three questions were due
much more to the fundamental antithesis between the two trends in
the Russian Social-Democratic movement than to differences over details.
The second reason was that the perplexity displayed by the Economists
over the practical application of our views in Iskra revealed quite clearly
that we often literally speak in different languages, that therefore we can-
not come to any understanding without beginning ab ovo,*** and that an
attempt must be made, in the simplest possible style, and illustrated by
numerous and concrete examples, systematically to "clear up all9' our funda-
mental points of difference with all the Economists. I resolved to make such
an attempt to "clear up" the differences, fully realizing that it would greatly
increase the size of the pamphlet and delay its publication, but at the same
time seeing no other way of fulfilling the promise I made in the article
"Where To Begin." Thus, in addition to apologizing for the belated publi-
cation of the pamphlet, I must Apologize for its numerous literary shortcom-
ings. I had to work under great pressure 9 and was moreover frequently in-
terrupted by other work.
The examination of the three questions mentioned above still constitutes
the main theme of this pamphlet, but I found it necessary to begin with two
questions of a more general nature, viz., why an "innocent" and "natural"
demand like "freedom of criticism" should be a real fighting challenge for
us, and why we cannot agree even on the fundamental question of the
role of Social-Democrats in relation to the spontaneous mass movement.
Further, the exposition of our views on the character and substance of po-
litical agitation developed into an explanation of the difference between the
* Rabochaya Oazeta — organ of the Kiev Social-Democrats. By decision of
the First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. this newspaper was declared the central organ
of the Party. Lenin wrote several articles for the paper (see Lenin, Collected Works,
Russian edition, Vol. II, pp. 487.504) but it proved impossible to renew
publication.— J£d.
** See Lenin, Collected Work*, Eng. cdt| Vol. IV, Book II, pp, 65-71,— Ed,
6 ovo— from the beginning,—^,
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 151
trade unionist policy and the Social-Democratic policy, while the exposi-
tion of our views on organizational tasks developed into an explanation of
the difference between the amateurish methods which satisfy the Economists
and the organization of revolutionaries which in our opinion is indispen-
sable. Further, I advance the "plan" for an all- Russian political newspaper
with all the more insistence because of the flimsiness of the arguments lev-
eled against it, and because no real answer has been given to the question
I raised in the article "Where To Begin" as to how we can set to work from
all sides simultaneously to construct the organization we need. Finally, in
the concluding part of this pamphlet, I hope to show that we did all we could
to prevent a decisive rupture with the Economists, but that it neverthe-
less proved inevitable; that Rdbocheye Dyelo has acquired a special signifi-
cance, a "historical" significance, if you will, because it most fully and
most graphically expressed, not consistent Economism, but the confusion
and vacillation which constitute the distinguishing feature of a whole
period in the history of the Russian Social -Democratic movement; and that
therefore the controversy with Rdbocheye Dyelo, which may at first sight
seem to be waged in too excessive detail, also acquires significance; for no
progress can be made until we put a definite end to this period.
February 1902
162 V. I. LENIN
I
DOGMATISM AND "FREEDOM OF CRITICISM"
A. What Is "Freedom of Criticism99'?
"Freedom of criticism," this undoubtedly is the most fashionable slo-
gan at the present time, and the one most frequently employed in the con-
troversies between the Socialists and democrats of all countries. At first
sight, nothing would appear to be more strange than the solemn appeals by
one of the parties to the dispute for freedom of criticism. Have voices
been raised in some of the advanced parties against the constitutional
law of the majority of European countries which guarantees freedom to
science and scientific investigation? "Something must be wrong here," an
onlooker, who has not yet fully appreciated the nature of the disagreements
among the controversialists, will say when he hears this fashionable slo-
gan repeated at every cross-road. "Evidently this slogan is one of the con-
ventional phrases which, like a nickname, becomes legitimatized by use,
and becomes almost an appellative," he will conclude.
In fact, it is no secret that two separate tendencies have been formed in
present-day international Social-Democracy.* The fight between these
tendencies now flares up in a bright flame, and now dies down and smoul-
ders under the ashes of imposing "resolutions for an armistice." What
this "new" tendency, which adopts a "critical" attitude towards "obsolete
* Incidentally, this perhaps is the only occasion in the history of modern
Socialism in which controversies between various tendencies within the Socialist
movement have grown from national into international controversies; and this
is extremely encouraging. Formerly, the disputes between the Lassalleans and
the Eisenachers, between the Guesdites and the Possibilists, between the Fabians
and the Social-Democrats, and between the "Narodnaya Volya"-ites and Social-
Democrats, remained purely national disputes, reflected purely national features
and proceeded, as it were, on different planes. At the present time (this is quite
evident now), the English Fabians, the French Ministerialists, the German Bern-
steinites and the Russian "critics" — all belong to the same family, all extol each
other, learn from each other, and are rallying their forces against "doctrinaire"
Marxism. Perhaps in this first really international battle with Socialist opportun-
ism, international revolutionary Social -Democracy will become sufficiently strength-
ened to put an end to the political reaction that has long reigned in Europe.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 153
doctrinaire" Marxism, represents has been stated with sufficient precision
by Bernstein, and demonstrated by Millerand.
Social-Democracy must change from a party of the social revolution in-
to a democratic party of social reforms. Bernstein has surrounded this po-
litical demand with a whole battery of symmetrically arranged "new" ar-
guments and reasonings. The possibility of putting Socialism on a scientific
basis and of proving that it is necessary and inevitable from the point of
view of the materialist conception of history was denied, as also were the
facts of growing impoverishment and proletarianization and the intensifi-
cation of capitalist contradictions. The very conception, "ultimate
aim," was declared to be unsound, and the idea of the dictatorship of
the proletariat was absolutely rejected. It was denied that there is any
difference in principle between liberalism and Socialism. The theory of
the class struggle was rejected on the grounds that it could not be applied
to a strictly democratic society, governed according to the will of the
majority, etc.
Thus, the demand for a definite change from revolutionary Social-De-
mocracy to bourgeois social-reformism was accompanied by a no less def-
inite turn towards bourgeois criticism of all the fundamental ideas of Marx-
ism. As this criticism of Marxism has been going on for a long time
now, from the political platform, from university chairs, in numerous pam-
phlets and in a number of scientific works, as the younger generation of
the educated classes has been systematically trained for decades on this
criticism, it is not surprising that the "new, critical" tendency in Social-
Democracy should spring up, all complete, like Minerva from the head
of Jupiter. The content of this new tendency did not have to grow and
develop, it was transferred bodily from bourgeois literature to Socialist
literature.
To proceed. If Bernstein's theoretical criticism and political yearnings
are still obscure to anyone, the French have taken the trouble to demon-
strate the "new method." In this instance, also, France has justified its old
reputation as the country in which "more than anywhere else, the historical
class struggles were each time fought out to a decision. . . ." (Engels, in his
introduction to Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire.) The French Socialists
have begun, not to theorize, but to act. The more developed democratic po-
litical conditions in France have permitted them to put "Bernsteinism into
practice" immediately, with all its consequences. Millerand has provided
an excellent example of practical Bernsteinism; not without reason did
Bernstein and Volltnar rush so zealously to defend and praise him! Indeed,
if Social-Democracy, in essence, is merely a reformist party, and must be
bold enough to admit this openly, then not only has a Socialist the right to
join a bourgeois cabinet, it is even his duty always to strive to do so. If
democracy, in essence, means the abolition of class domination, then why
should not a Socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world by orations
on class collaboration? Why should he not remain in the cabinet even after
154 V. I. LENIN
the shooting down of workers by gendarmes has exposed, for the hundredth
and thousandth time, the real nature of the democratic co-operation of
classes? . . . And the reward for this utter humiliation and self-degradation
of Socialism in the face of the whole world, for the corruption of the
Socialist consciousness of the working class — the only basis that can
guarantee our victory — the reward for this is imposing plans for nig-
gardly reforms, so niggardly in fact that much more has been obtained
from bourgeois governments!
He who does not deliberately close his eyes cannot fail to see that the new
"critical" tendency in Socialism is nothing more nor less than a new species
of opportunism. And if we judge people not by the brilliant uniforms they
deck themselves in, not by the imposing appellations they give themselves,
but by their actions, and by what they actually advocate, it will be clear
that "freedom of criticism" means freedom for an opportunistic tendency in
Social-Democracy, the freedom to convert Social-Democracy into a demo-
era tic reformist party, -the freedom to introduce bourgeois ideas and bour-
geois elements into Socialism.
"Freedom" is a grand word, but under the banner of free trade the most
predatory wars were conducted; under the banner of free labour, the toilers
were robbed. The modern use of the term "freedom of criticism"
contains the same inherent falsehood. Those who are really convinced that
they have advanced science would demand, not freedom for the new views
to continue side by side with the old, but the substitution of the new views
for the old. The cry "Long live freedom of criticism," that is heard today,
too strongly calls to mind the fable of the empty barrel.
We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficu It
path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all
sides by enemies, and are under -their almost constant fire. We have combined
voluntarily, precisely for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not to
retreat into the adjacent rnarsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very
outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclu-
sive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path
of conciliation. And now several among us begin to cry out: let us go into
this marsh 1 And when we begin to shame them, they retort: how conserva-
tive you arel Are you not ashamed to deny us the right to invite you to take
a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but
to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think
that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every
assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands , don ' t clutch at us and don ' t
besmirch the grand word "freedom"; for we too are "free" to go where
we please, free not only to fight against the marsh, but also against those
who are turning towards the marsh.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 166
B. The New Advocates of "Freedom of Criticism"
Now, this slogan ("freedom of criticism") is solemnly advanced in No, 10
of Rdbocheye Dyelo, the organ of the Foreign Union of Russian Social-
Democrats, abroad not as a theoretical postulate, but as a political demand,
as a reply to the question: "is it possible to unite the Social-Democratic
organizations operating abroad?" — "in order that unity may be durable,
there must be freedom of criticism." (P. 36.)
From this statement two very definite conclusions must be drawn: 1) that
Rdbocheye Dyelo has taken the opportunist tendency in international So-
cial-Democracy under its wing; and 2) that Rdbocheye Dyelo demands free-
dom for opportunism in Russian Social-Democracy. We shall examine these
conclusions.
Rdbocheye Dyelo is "particularly" displeased with Iskra's and Zarya's
"inclination to predict a rupture between the Mountain and the Oironde
in international Social-Democracy."*
"Generally speaking," writes B. Krichevsky, editor of Rdbocheye
Dyelo, "this talk about the Mountain and the Gironde that is heard in
the ranks of Social-Democracy represents a shallow historical anal-
ogy, which looks strange when it comes from the pen of a Marxist.
The Mountain and the Gironde did not represent two different tem-
peraments, or intellectual tendencies, as ideologist historians may
think, but two different classes or strata — the middle bourgeoisie
on the one hand, and the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat on
the other. In the modern Socialist movement, however, there is no
conflict of class interests; the Socialist movement in its entirety, all
of its diverse forms [B. K.'s italics], including the most pronounced
Bernsteinites, stand on the basis of the class interests of the pro-
letariat and of the proletarian class struggle, for its political and eco-
nomic emancipation." (Pp. 32-33.)
A bold assertion! Has not B. Krichevsky heard the fact, long ago noted,
that it is precisely the extensive participation of the "academic" stratum in
the Socialist movement in recent years that has secured the rapid spread of
Bernsteinism? And what is most important — on what does our author base
his opinion that even "the most pronounced Bernsteinites" stand on the
basis of the class struggle for the political and economic emancipation of
* A comparison between the two tendencies among the revolutionary prole-
tariat (the revolutionary and the opportunist) and the two tendencies among the
revolutionary bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century (the Jacobin, known as the
Mountain, and the Girondists) was made in a leading article in No. 2 of Iskra,
February 1901. This article was written by Plekhanov. The Cadets, the Bezza-
glavtai and the Mensheviks to this day love to refer to the Jacobinism in Russian
Social-Democracy but they prefer to remain silent about or ... to forget the cir-
cumstance that Plekhanov used this term for the first time against the Right
wing of Social-Democracy, (Author's note to the 1908 edition,— #d.)
156 V. L LENIN
the proletariat? No one knows. This determined defence of the most pro-
nounced Bernsteinians is not supported by any kind of argument whatever.
Apparently, the author believes that if he repeats what the pronounced
Bernsteinites say about themselves, his assertion requires no proof. But
can anything more "shallow" be imagined than an opinion of a whole ten-
dency that is based on nothing more than what the representatives of that
tendency say about themselves? Can anything more shallow be imagined
than the subsequent "homily" about the two different and even diametri-
cally opposite types, or paths, of Party development? (Rabocheye Dyelo,
pp. 34-35.) The German Social-Democrats, you see, recognize complete free-
dom of criticism, but the French do not, and it is precisely the latter that
present an example of the "harmfulness of intolerance."
To which we reply that the very example of B. Krichevsky proves
that those who regard history literally from the "Ilovaysky"* point of view
sometimes describe themselves as Marxists. There is no need whatever, in
explaining the unity of the German Socialist Party and the dismembered
state of the French Socialist Party, to search for the special features in the
history of the respective countries, to compare the conditions of military
semi- absolutism in the one country with republican parliamentarism in the
other, or to analyse the effects of the Paris Commune and the effects of the
Anti- Socialist Law in Germany; ** to compare the economic life and econom-
ic development of the two countries, or recall that "the unexampled
growth of German Social-Democracy" was accompanied by a strenuous
struggle, unexampled in the history of Socialism, not only against mistaken
theories (Miihlberger, Diihring, *** the Katkeder- Socialists), but also against
mistaken tactics (Lassalle), etc., etc. All that is superfluous! The French
* Ilovaysky — author of the standard school textbooks on history in use in
Russian schools before the Revolutio'n. Their purpose was to educate the student
youth in the spirit of "loyalty to the Tsar." These textbooks were proverbial
for their sheer ignorance and ant i -scientific treatment of Russian history. — Ed.
** The Anti-Socialist Law — an exceptional law against Socialists passed by
the Reichstag in 1878 on a motion introduced by Bismarck the express purpose
of which was to suppress the Social-Democratic movement in Germany. The law
was repealed in 1890. — Ed.
*** At the time Engels hurled his attack against Diihring, many representatives
of German Social-Democracy inclined towards the latter 's views, and accusations
of acerbity, intolerance, uncomradely polemics, etc., were even publicly hurled
at Engels at the Party Congress. At the Congress of 1877, Most, and his supporters,
moved a resolution to prohibit the publication of Engels' articles in Vorwarts
because "they do not interest the overwhelming majority of the readers," and
Wahlteich declared that the publication of these articles had caused great damage
to the Party, that Diihring had also rendered services to Social-Democracy: "We
must utilize everyone in the interest of the Party; let the professors engage in
polemics if they care to do so, but Vorw&rta is not the place in which to conduct
them." (Vorwdrts, No. 65, June 6, 1877.) Here we have another example of the
defence of "freedom of criticism," and it would do our legal critics and illegal
opportunists, who love so much to quote examples from the Germans,, a deal
of good to ponder over it I
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 157
quarrel among themcelves because they are intolerant; the Geimans are
united because they are gcod boys.
And observe, this piece of matchless profundity is intended to "refute"
the fact which is a complete answer to the defence of Bernsteinism. The
question as to whether the Bernsteinians do stand on the basis of the class
struggle of the proletariat can be completely and irrevocably answered only
by historical experience. Consequently, the example of France is the most
important one in this respect, because France is the only country in which
the Bernsteinians attempted to stand independently, on their own feet,
with the warm approval of their German colleagues (and partly also of the
Russian opportunists). (Of. Rabocheye Dyelo, Nos. 2-3, pp. 83-84.) The ref-
erence to the "intolerance" of the French, apart from its "historical" signifi-
cance (in the Nozdrev sense), turns out to be merely an attempt to obscure
a very unpleasant fact with angry invectives.
But we are not even prepared to make a present of the Germans to
B. Krichevsky and to the numerous other champions of "freedom of
criticism." The "most pronounced Bernsteinians" are still tolerated in
the ranks of the German Party only because they submit to the Hanover
resolution, which emphatically rejected Bernstein's "amendments,"
and to the Liibeck resolution, which (notwithstanding the diplomatic
terms in which it is couched) contains a direct warning to Bernstein. It
is a debatable point, from the standpoint of the interests of the German
Party, whether diplomacy was appropriate and whether, in this case,
a bad peace is better than a good quarrel; in short, opinions may differ
in regard to the expediency, or not, of the methods employed to reject
Bernsteinism, but one cannot fail to see the fact that the German Party
did reject Bernsteinism on two occasions. Therefore, to think that the
German example endorses the thesis: "The most pronounced Bernsteinians
stand on the basis of the proletarian class struggle, for its economic and
political emancipation," means failing absolutely to understand what
is going on before one's eyes.
More than that. As we have already observed, Rabocheye Dyelo comes
before Russian Social -Democracy, demands "freedom of criticism," and
defends Bernsteinism. Apparently it came to the conclusion that we were
unfair to our "critics" and Bernsteinites. To whom were we unfair, when
and how? What was the unfairness? About this not a word. Rabocheye
Dyelo does not name a single Russian critic or Bernsteinian! All that is
left for us to do is to make one of two possible suppositions: first, that the
unfairly treated party is none other than Rabocheye Dyelo itself (and
that is confr.med by the fact that, in the two articles in No. 10 reference
is made only to the insults hurled at Rabocheye Dyelo by Zaiya and/sfcra).
If that is the case, how is the strange fact to be explained that Rabocheye
Dyzlo, which always vehemently dissociates itself from Bernsteinism^
could not defend itself, without putting in a word on behalf of the "most
pronoanced Bernsteinites" and of freedom of criticism? The second sup-
168 V. I. LENIN
position is that third persons have been treated unfairly. If the second
supposition is correct, then why are these persons not named?
We see, therefore, that Rabocheye Dyelo is continuing to play the game
of hide-and-seek that it has played (as we shall prove further on) ever
since it commenced publication. And note the first practical application
of this greatly extolled "freedom of criticism." As a matter of fact, not
only was -it forthwith reduced to abstention from all criticism, but also
to abstention from expressing independent views altogether. The very
Rabocheye Dyelo which avoids mentioning Russian Bernsteinism as if
it were a shameful disease (to use Starovyer's apt expression) proposes,
for the treatment of this disease, to copy word for word the latest German
prescription for the treatment of the German variety of the disease! In-
stead of freedom of criticism — slavish (worse: monkey-like) imitation!
The very same social and political content of modern international oppor-
tunism reveals itself in a variety of ways according to its national charac-
teristics. In one country the opportunists long ago came out under a
separate flag, while in others they ignored theory and in practice conduct-
ed a radical-socialist policy. In a third country, several members of
the revolutionary party have deserted to the camp of opportunism and
strive to achieve their aims not by an open struggle for principles and for
new tactics, but by gradual, unobserved and, if one may so express it,
unpunishable corruption of their Party. In a fourth country again, similar
deserters employ the same methods in the gloom of political slavery, and
with an extremely peculiar combination of "legal" with "illegal" activ-
ity, etc., etc. To talk about freedom of criticism and Bernsteinism as
a condition for uniting the Russian Social-Democrats, and not to ex-
plain how Russian Bernsteinism has manifested itself, and what fruits
it has borne, means talking for the purpose of saying nothing.
We shall try, if only in a few words, to say what Rabocheye Dyelo
did not want to say (or perhaps did not even understand).
C. Criticism in Russia
The peculiar position of Russia in regard to the point we are examining
is that the very beginning of the spontaneous labour movement on the one
hand and the change of progressive public opinion towards Marxism
on the other, was marked by the combination of obviously heterogeneous
elements under a common flag for the purpose of fighting the common
enemy (obsolete social and political Views). We refer to the heyday of
"legal Marxism." Speaking generally, this was an extremely curious phe-
nomenon that no one in the 'eighties or the beginning of the 'nineties would
have believed possible. In a country ruled by an autocracy, in which the
press is completely shackled, and in a period of intense political reaction
in which even the tiniest outgrowth of political discontent and protest
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 169
was suppressed, the theory of revolutionary Marxism suddenly forces
its way into the censored literature, written in Aesopian language, but
understood by the "interested." The government had accustomed itself
to regarding only the theory of (revolutionary) "Narodnaya Volya"-
ism as dangerous, without observing its internal evolution, as is usually
the case, and rejoicing at the criticism levelled against it no matter
from what quarter it came. Quite a considerable time elapsed (according to
our Russian calculations) before the government realized what had hap-
pened and the unwieldy army of censors and gendarmes discovered the
new enemy and flung itself upon him. Meanwhile, Marxian books were
published one after another, Marxian journals and newspapers were found-
ed, nearly everyone became a Marxist, Marxism was flattered, the
Marxists were courted and the book publishers rejoiced at the extraor-
dinary, ready sale of Marxian literature. It was quite natural, therefore,
that among the Marxian novices who were caught in this atmosphere,
there should be more than one "author who got a swelled head. ..."
We can now speak calmly of this period as of an event of the past.
It is no secret that the brief period in which Marxism blossomed on the
surface of our hteiature was called forth by the alliance between people
of extieme and of extiemely moderate views. In point of fact, the latter weie
bourgeois demociats; and this was the conclusion (so strikingly confirmed
by their subsequent "critical" development) that intruded itself on
the minds of certain persons even when the "alliance" was still intact.*
That being the case, does not the responsibility for the subsequent
"confusion" rest mainly upon the revolutionary Social-Democrats who
enteied into alliance with these future "critics"?** This question, togeth-
er with a icpjy in the affirmative, is sometimes heard from people with
excessively rigid views. But these people are absolutely wrong. Only
those who have no self-reliance can fear to enter into temporary alli-
ances even with unreliable people; not a single political party could exist
without entering into such alliances. The combination with the "legal
Marxists" was in its way the first really political alliance contracted
by Russian Social-Democrats. Thanks to this alliance, an astonishingly
rapid victory was obtained over Narodism, and Marxian ideas (even
though in a vulgarized form) became very widespread. Moieover, the
alliance was not concluded altogether without "conditions." The proof:
the burning by the censor, in 1895, of the Marxian symposium, Mate-
rials on the Problem of the Economic Development of Russia*** If the
*This refers to an article by K. Tulin [Lenin — Ed.] written against Struve.
The* article was compiled from an essay entitled "The Reflection of Marxism in
Bourgeois Literature." (Author's note to the 1908 edition. See Lenin, Selected
Works, Eng. ed., Vol. I, pp. 457-66.— Ed.)
** "The critics in Russia" — "legal Marxists" — the critics of Marx, viz., Struve,
Bulgakov, Berdayev and others. — Ed.
*** This symposium contained articles by Lenin (under the pen name of
Tulin), Plekhanov, Potresov and others. — Ed.
160 V. I. LENIN
literary agreement with the "legal Marxists" can be compared with a
political alliance, then that book can be compared with a political treaty.
The rupture, of course, did not occur because the "allies" proved to
be bourgeois democrats. On the contrary, the representatives of the lat-
ter tendency were the natural attd desirable allies of Social-Democracy
in so far as its democratic tasks that were brought to the front by the pre-
vailing situation in Russia were concerned. But an essential condition
for such an alliance must be complete liberty for Socialists to reveal
to. the working class that its interests are diametrically opposed to the
interests of the bourgeoisie. However, the Bernsteinian and "critical"
tendency, to which the majority of the "legal Marxists" turned, de-
prived the Socialists of this liberty and corrupted Socialist consciousness
by vulgarizing Marxism, by preaching the toning down of social antago-
nisms, by declaring the idea of the social revolution and the dictatorship
of the proletariat to be absurd, by restricting the labour movement and
the class struggle to narrow trade unionism and to a "realistic" struggle
for petty, gradual reforms. This was tantamount to the bourgeois dem-
ocrat's denial of Socialism's right to independence and, consequently,
of its right to existence; in practice it meant a striving to convert the
nascent labour movement into an appendage of the liberals.
Naturally, under such circumstances a rupture was necessary. But the
"peculiar" feature of Russia manifested itself in that this rupture sim-
ply meant the elimination of the Social-Democrats from the most ac-
cessible and widespread "legal" literature. The "ex-Marxists" who took
up the flag of "criticism," and who obtained almost a monopoly of the
"criticism" of Marxism, entrenched themselves in this literature. Catch-
words like: "Against orthodoxy" and "Long live freedom of criticism"
(now repeated by Rabocheye Dyelo) immediately became the fashion, and
the fact that neither the censor nor the gendarmes could resist this fash-
ion is apparent from the publication of three Russian editions of Bern-
stein's celebrated book (celebrated in the Herostratus sense) and from
the fact that the books by Bernstein, Prokopovich and others were
recommended by Zubatov. (Iskra, No. 10.) Upon the Social-Democrats was
now imposed a task that was difficult in itself, and made incredibly more
difficult by purely external obstacles, viz.9 the task of fighting against
the new tendency. And this tendency did not confine itself to the sphere
of literature. The turn towards "criticism" was accompanied by the turn to-
wards "Economism" that was taken by Social-Democratic practical workers.
The manner in which the contacts and mutual interdependence of
legal criticism and illegal Economism arose and grew is an interesting
subject in itself, and may very well be treated in a special article. It
is sufficient to note here that these contacts undoubtedly existed. The no-
toriety deservedly acquired by the Credo was due precisely to the frank-
ness with which it formulated these contacts and revealed the fundamen-
tal political tendencies of "Economism, "viz., let the workers carry on the
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 161
economic struggle (it would be more correct to say the trade union strug-
gle, because the latter also embraces specifically labour politics), and let
the Marxian intelligentsia merge with the liberals for the political "strug*
gle." Thus it turned out that trade union work "among the people" meant
fulfilling the first part of this task, and legal criticism meant fulfilling
the second part. This statement proved to be such an excellent weapon
against Economism that, had there been no Credo, it would have been
worth inventing.
The Credo was not invented, but it was published without the con-
sent and perhaps even against the will of its authors. At all events the
present writer, who was partly responsible for dragging this new "pro-
gram" into the light of day, * has heard complaints and reproaches to the
effect that copies of the resumdof. their views which was dubbed the Credo
were distributed and even published in the press together with the pro-
test! We refer to this episode because it reveals a very peculiar state of
mind among our Economists, viz., a fear of publicity. This is a feature
of Economism generally, and not of the authors of the Credo alone. It
was revealed by that most outspoken and honest advocate of Economism,
Eabochaya Mysl, and by Sabocheye Dyelo (which was indignant over the
publication of "Economist" documents in the Vademecum * *) , as well as
by the Kiev Committee, which two years ago refused to permit the publi-
cation of its profession de /oi,*** together with a repudiation of it, and
by many other individual representatives of Economism.
This fear of criticism displayed by the advocates of freedom of criti-
cism cannot be attributed solely to craftiness (although no doubt crafti-
ness has something to do with it: it would be unwise to expose the young
and as yet puny movements to the enemies' attack!). No, the majority
of the Economists quite sincerely disapprove (and by the very nature
of Economism they must disapprove) of all theoretical controversies,
factional disagreements, of broad political questions, of schemes for
organizing revolutionaries, etc. "Leave all this sort of thing to the ex-
iles abroad!" said a fairly cons is tent Economist to me one day, and there-
by he expressed a very widespread (and purely trade unionist) view:
* Reference is made here to the Protest Signed by the Seventeen against the
Credo. The present writer took part in drawing up this protest (the end of 1899).
The protest and the Credo were published abroad in the spring of 1900. [See Lenin,
Selected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. I. — Ed.] It is now known from the article written
by Madame Kuskova, I think in Byloye (Past), that she was the author of the
Credo, and that Mr. Prokopovich was very prominent among the "Economists"
abroad at that time. [Author's note to the 1908 edition. — Ed.]
** Vademecum (literally guide) for the Editors of "Rabocheye Dyelo" — the title
of a collection of documents relating to "Economism" brought out by Plckhanov.
— Ed.
*** Profession de foi — profession of faith. The title of a document composed by
the Kiev Committee in which the "Economists" expounded their program. It was
-subjected to a withering criticism by Lenin in an article entitled "Anent
the Profession de /ot." — Ed.
11-686
162 V. I* LENIN
our business, he said, is the labour movement, the labour organizations,
here, in our localities; all the rest are merely the inventions of doctri-
naires, an "exaggeration of the importance of ideology," as the authors
of the letter, published in Iskra, No. 12,* expressed it, in unison with
Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10.
The question now arises: seeing what the peculiar features of Russian
"criticism" ^and Russian Bernsteinism are, what should those who desired
to oppose opportunism, in deeds and not merely in words, have done?
First of all, they should have made efforts to resume the theoreti-
cal work that was only just begun in the period of "legal Marxism,"
and that has now again fallen on the shoulders of the illegal workers.
XJnless such work is undertaken the successful growth of the movement
is impossible. Secondly, they should have actively combated legal "crit-
icism" that was greatly corrupting people's minds. Thirdly, they should
have actively counteracted the confusion and vacillation prevailing in
practical work, and should have exposed and repudiated every conscious
or unconscious attempt to degrade our program and tactics.
That Rabocheye Dyelo did none of these things is a well-known fact,
and further on we shall deal with this well-known fact from various
aspects. At the moment, however, we desire merely to show what a glar-
ing contradiction there is between the demand for "freedom of criticism"
and the peculiar features of our native criticism and Russian Economism.
Indeed, glance at the text of the resolution by which the "Foreign Union of
Russian Social-Democrats" endorsed the point of view of Rabocheye Dyelo*
"In the interests of the further ideological development of So-
cial-Democracy, we recognize the freedom to criticize Social-
Democratic theory in Party literature to be absolutely necessary
in so far as this criticism does not run counter to the class and rev-
olutionary character of this theory." (Two Congresses, p. 10.)
And what is the argument behind this resolution? The resolution
"in its first part coincides with the resolution of the Liibeck Party Con-
gress on Bernstein. . . ." In the simplicity of their souls the "Unionists'r
failed to observe the testimonium paupertatis (certificate of poverty)
they give themselves by this piece of imitativeness 1 ... "But ... in
its second part, it restricts freedom of criticism much more than did the
Liibeck Party Congress."
So the "Union's" resolution was directed against Russian Bernsteinism?
If it was not, then the reference to Liibeck is utterly absurd I But it is
not true to say that it "restricts freedom of criticism." In passing their
Hanover resolution, the Germans, point by point, rejected precisely
the amendments proposed by Bernstein, while in their Liibeck resolution?
* Lenin cited this letter of the "Economists" in his article entitled "A Conver-
sation with the Advocates of Economism" (Lenin, Collected Works. Eng. ed.,.
Vol. IV, Book II, pp. 65-71).— tfd.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 163
they cautioned Bernstein personally, and named him in the resolution. Our
"free" imitators, however, do not make a single reference to a single mani-
festation of Russian "criticism" and Russian Economism and, in view of
this omission, the bare reference to the class and revolutionary character
of the theory leaves exceedingly wide scope for misinterpretation, partic-
ularly when the "Union" refuses to identify "so-called Economism" with
opportunism. (Two Congresses^ p. 8, par. 1.) But all this en passant.
The important thing to note is that the opportunist attitude towards
revolutionary Social-Democrats in Russia is the very opposite of that in
Germany. In Germany, as we know, revolutionary Social-Democrats
are in favour of preserving what is: they stand in favour of the old pro-
gram and tactics which are universally known, and after many decades
of experience have become clear in all their details. The "critics" desire
to introduce changes, and as these critics represent an insignificant minor-
ity, and as they are very shy and halting in their revisionist efforts, one
can understand the motives of the majority in confining themselves to
the dry rejection of "innovations." In Russia, however, it is the critics
and Economists who are in favour of preserving what is: the "critics"
want us to continue to regard them as Marxists, and to guarantee them the
"freedom of criticism" which they enjoyed to the full (for, as a matter of
fact, they never recognized any kind of Party ties, * and, moreover, we never
had a generally recognized Party organ which could "restrict freedom" of
criticism even by giving advice); the Economists want the revolution-
aries to recognize the "competency of the present movement" (Rabocheye
Dyelo, No. 10, p. 25), t.e., to recognize the "legitimacy" of what exists;
they do not want the "ideologists" to try to "divert" the movement from
the path that "is determined by the interaction of material elements
and material environment" (Letter published in Iskra, No. 12); they want
recognition "for the only struggle that the workers can conduct under
present conditions," which in their opinion is the struggle "which they
are actually conducting at the present time." (Special Supplement to
Rabochaya Mysl9 p. 14.) We revolutionary Social-Democrats, on the con-
* The absence of public Party ties and Party traditions by itself marks such
a cardinal difference between Russia and Germany that it should have warned
all sensible Socialists against imitating blindly. But here is an example of the
lengths to which "freedom of criticism" goes in Russia. Mr. Bulgakov, the Russian-
critic, utters the following reprimand to the Austrian critic, Hertz: "Notwith-
standing the independence of his conclusions, Hertz, on this point [on co-oper-
ative societies] apparently remains tied by the opinions of his Party, and although
he disagrees with it in details, he dare not reject common principles." (Capitalism
and Agriculture, Vol. II, p. 287.) The subject of a politically enslaved state, in
which nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of the population are
corrupted to the marrow of the if bones by political subservience, and completely
Jack the conception of Party honour and Party ties, superciliously reprimands
a citizen of a constitutional state for being excessively "tied by the opinion of
his Party I" Our illegal organizations have nothing else to do, of course, but draw
up resolutions about freedom of criticism....
11*
164 y. i.
trary, are dissatisfied with this worshipping of spontaneity, t.e., worshipr
ping what is "at the present time"; we demand that the tactics that have
prevailed in recent years be changed; we declare that "before we can unite,
and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite
lines of demarcation." (See announcement of the publication of Iskra.)
In a word, the Germans stand for what is and reject changes; we demand
changes, and reject subservience to, and conciliation with, what is.
This "little" difference our "free" copyists of German resolutions
failed to notice!
D, Engels on the Importance of the Theoretical Struggle
"Dogmatism, doctrinairism," "ossification of the Party — the inevitar
ble retribution that follows the violent strait- lacing of thought" — these
are the enemies which the knightly champions of "freedom of criticism"
rise up in arms against in Rabocheye Dyelo. We are very glad that this
question has been brought up and we would only propose to add to it
another question:
Who are the judges?
Before us lie two publisher's announcements. One, The Program of
the Periodical Organ of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats — Rabo-
cheye Dyelo (reprint from No. 1 of Rabocheye Dyel6)9 and the other an
announcement of the resumption of the publications of the "Emanci*-
pation of Labour Group." Both are dated 1899, a time when the "crisis
of Marxism" had long since been under discussion. And what do we find?
You would seek in vain in the first publication for any reference to this
phenomenon, or a definite statement of the position the new organ in-
tends to adopt on this question. Of theoretical work and the urgent tasks
that now confront it not a word is said either in this program or in the
supplements to it that were passed by the Third Congress of the Union
in 1901 (Two Congresses, pp. 15-18). During the whole of this time the
editorial board of Rabocheye Dyelo ignored, theoretical questions, in
spite of the fact that these questions were agitating the minds of all
Social-Democrats all over the world.
The other announcement, on the contrary, first of all points to the
diminution of interest in theory observed in recent years, imperatively de-
mands "vigilant attention to the theoretical side of the revolutionary move-
ment of the proletariat," and calls for "ruthless criticism of the Bernstein-
ian and other anti-revolutionary tendencies" in our movement. The issues
of Zarya that have appeared show how this program has been carried out.
Thus we see that high-sounding .phrases against the ossification of
thought, etc., conceal unconcern and impotence in the development of
theoretical thought. The case of the Russian Social-Democrats very strik-
ingly illustrates the fact observed in the whole of Europe (and long
ago noted also by the German Marxists) that ,trie notorious freedom of
TTHAT 13 TO Bt DONE? 165
criticism does not imply the substitution of one theory for another, but
freedom from every complete and consistent theory; it implies eclecticism
and lack of principle. Those who have the slightest acquaintance with
the actual state of our movement cannot but see that the wide spread
of Marxism was accompanied by a certain lowering of the theoretical
level. Quite a number of people with very little, and even a total lack
of theoretical training joined the movement because of its practical signif-
icance and its practical successes. We can therefore judge how tactless
Rdbocheye Dyelo is when, with an air of triumph, it quotes Marx's state-
ment: "Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen
programs." To repeat these words in a period of theoretical chaos is
like wishing mourners at a funeral "many happy returns of the day/*
Moreover, these words of Marx are taken from his letter on the Gotha
Program, in which he sharply condemns eclecticism in the formulation
of principles: If you must unite, Marx wrote to the Party leaders, then
£nter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement,
but do riot haggle over principles, do not make "concessions" in theory.
This was Marx's idea, and yet there are people among us who strive —
in his name! — to belittle the significance of theory.
Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary move-
ment. This thought cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when
the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an
infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity. Yet, for Rus-
sian Social-Democrats the importance of theory is enhanced by three
circumstances, which are often forgotten: firstly, by the fact that our
Party is only in process of formation, its features are only just becoming
outlined, and it is yet far from having settled accounts with other trends
of revolutionary thought, which threaten to divert the movement from
the proper path. On the contrary, we only very recently observed a re-
vival of non-Social-Democratic revolutionary trends (which Axelrod
long ago warned the Economists would happen). Under such circumstan-
ces, what at first sight appears to be an "unimportant" mistake may lead to
most deplorable consequences, and only short-sighted people can consider
factional disputes and a strict differentiation between shades inopportune
and superfluous. The fate of Russian Social-Democracy for many many
years to come may depend on the strengthening of one or other "shade."
Secondly, the Social-Democratic movement is essentially internation-
al. This does not merely mean that we must combat national chauvin-
ism, but also that a movement that is starting in a young country can
be successful only if it assimilates the experience of otrer countries.
And in order to assimilate this experience, it is not enough mere-
ly to be acquainted with it, or simply to transcribe the latest resolu-
tions. This requires the ability to treat this experience critically and to
test it independently. Anybody who realizes how enormously the mod-
ern labour movement has grown and become ramified will understand
166 V. L LENflf
what an amount of theoretical force and political (as well as revolution-
ary) experience is needed to fulfil this task.
Thirdly, the national tasks of Russian Social-Democracy are such as
have never confronted any other Socialist Party in the world. Further
on we shall have occasion to deal with the political and organizational
duties which the task of emancipating the whole people from the yoke
of autocracy imposes upon us. At the moment, we only wish to state that
the role of yanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided
by the most advanced theory. In order to understand what this means at
all concretely, let the reader recall predecessors of Russian Social-Democ-
racy like Herzen, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and the brilliant galaxy of
revolutionaries of the 'seventies; let him ponder over the world significance
which Russian literature is now acquiring, let him . . . but that is enough!
Let us quote what Engels said in 1874 concerning the significance of
theory in the Social-Democratic movement. Engels recognizes not two
forms of the great struggle of Social-Democracy (political and economic),
as is the fashion among us, but three, adding to the first two the theoreti-
cal struggle. His recommendations to the German labour movement,
which had become strong, practically and politically, are so instructive
from the standpoint of present-day problems and controversies, that
we hope the reader will not be vexed with us for quoting a long passage from
his prefatory note to Der deutsche Bauernkrieg, * which has long become
a bibliographical rarity.
"The German workers have two important advantages over
those of the rest of Europe. First, they belong to the most theo-
retical people of Europe; they have retained that sense of theory
which the so-called 'educated* people of Germany have almost
completely lost. Without German philosophy which preceded it,
particularly that of Hegel, German scientific Socialism — the only
scientific Socialism that has ever existed — would never have come
into being. Without a sense of theory among the workers, this
scientific Socialism would never have passed so entirely into their
flesh and blood as has been the case. What an immeasurable ad-
vantage this is may be seen, on the one hand, from the indifference
towards all theory, which is one of the main reasons why the Eng-
lish labour movement moves so slowly in spite of the splendid
organization of the individual unions; on the other hand, from the
mischief and confusion wrought by Proudhonism in its original form
among the French and Belgians, and in the further caricatured
form at the hands of Bakunin, among the Spaniards and Italians.
"The second advantage is that chronologically speaking the
Germans were almost the last to come into the labour move-
* Dritter Abdruk. Leipzig. 1875. Verlag der Genoasenschaftabuchdruckerci.
t*The Peasant War in Germany. Third edition. Co-operative Publishers. Leipzig,
ISIS.— Ed.)
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 167
anent. Just as German theoretical Socialism will never forget that
it rests on the shoulders of Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen, three
jnen who, in spite of all their fantastic notions and utopianism,
have their place among the most eminent thinkers of all times,
and whose genius anticipated innumerable things the correctness
•of which is now being scientifically proved by us — so the practical
labour movement in Germany must never forget that it has de-
veloped on the shoulders of the English and French movements,
•that it was able simply to utilize their dearly- bought experience, and
•could now avoid their mistakes, which in their time were mostly una-
voidable. Without the English trade unions and the French workers '
political struggles which came before, without the gigantic impulse
given especially by the Paris Commune, where would we now be?
"It must be said to the credit of the German workers that they
have exploited the advantages of their situation with rare under-
standing. For the first time since a labour movement has exist-
ed, the struggle is being conducted from its three sides, the theo-
retical, the political and the practical-economic (resistance to the
capitalists), in harmony, co-ordination and in a planned way.
It is precisely in this, as it were, concentric attack, that the strength
and invincibility of the German movement lies.
"It is due to this advantageous situation on the one hand, to
the insular peculiarities of the English and to the forcible suppres-
sion of the French movement on the other, that the German work-
ers have for the moment been placed in the vanguard of the pro-
letarian struggle. How long events will allow them to occupy this
post of honour cannot be foretold. But as long as they occupy it,
let us hope that they will fill it in a fitting manner. This demands
redoubled efforts in every field of struggle and agitation. It is in
particular the duty of the leaders to gain an ever clearer insight
into all theoretical questions, to free themselves more and more
•from the influence of traditional phrases inherited from the old
world outlook, and constantly to keep in mind that Socialism,
•since it has become a science, must be pursued as a science, i.e.,
it must be studied. The task will be to spread with increased zeal
among the masses of the workers the ever clearer insight, thus ac-
quired, to knit together ever more firmly the organization both
of the party and of the trade unions. ... If the German workers
proceed in this way, they will not be marching exactly at the
head of the movement — it is not at all in the interest of this move-
ment that the workers of any one country should march at its
'head — but they will occupy an honourable place in the battle
line, and they will stand armed for battle when either unexpected-
ly grave trials or momentous events will demand from them height-
<ened courage, heightened determination and the power to act.**
168 V. I. LENIN
Engels' words proved prophetic. Within a few years the German
workers were subjected to unexpectedly grave trials in the form of the
Ant i- Socialist Law. And the German workers really met them armed
for battle and succeeded in emerging from them in triumph.
The Russian proletariat will have to undergo trials immeasurably
more grave; it will have to fight a monster compared with which the Anti-
Socialist Law in a constitutional country seems but a pigmy. History
has now confronted us with an immediate task which is the moat revolu-
tionary of all the immediate tasks that confront the proletariat of any
country. The fulfilment of this task, the destruction of the most powerful
bulwark, not only of European but also (it may now be said) of Asiatic reac-
tion would make the Russian proletariat the vanguard of the internation-
al revolutionary proletariat. And we are right in counting upon acquir-
ing this honourable title already earned by our predecessors, the revo-
lutionaries of the 'seventies, if we succeed in inspiring our movement —
which is a thousand times broader and deeper — with the same devoted
determination and vigour.
II
THE SPONTANEITY OF THE MASSES AND THE CLASS
CONSCIOUSNESS OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY
We have said that our movement, much wider and deeper than the
movement of the 'seventies, must be inspired with the same devoted
determination and energy that inspired the movement at that time.
Indeed, no one, we think, has up to now doubted that the strength of
the modern movement lies in the awakening of the masses (principally,
the industrial proletariat), and that its weakness lies in the lack of con-
sciousness and initiative among the revolutionary leaders.
However, a most astonishing discovery has been made recently, which
threatens to overthrow all the views that have hitherto prevailed on this
question. This discovery was made by Rdbocheye Dyelo, which in its
controversy with Iskra and Zarya did not confine itself to making objec-
tions on separate points, but tried to ascribe "general disagreements"
to a more profound cause — to the "disagreement concerning the estima-
tion of the relative importance of the spontaneous and consciously 'method-
ical* element." Rabocheye Dyelo's indictment was that "it belittles the
significance of the objective or the spontaneous element of development"*
To this we say: if the controversy with Iskra and Zarya resulted in abso-
lutely nothing more than causing Rdbocheye Dyelo to hit upon these
"general disagreements" that single .result would give us considerable
satisfaction, so important is this thesis and so clearly does it illuminate
* Rdbocheye Dyelo, No. 10, September 1901, pp. 17-18. (Ralochtye Dyelo'*
italics.)
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 169
the quintessence of the present-day theoretical and political differences
that exist among Russian Social-Democrats.
That is why the question of the relation between consciousness and
Spontaneity is of such enormous general interest, and that is why this
question must be dealt with in great detail.
A. The Beginning of the Spontaneous Revival
In the previous chapter we pointed out how universally absorbed the
educated youth of Russia was in the theories of Marxism in the middle
of the 'nineties. The strikes that followed the famous St. Petersburg
industrial war of 1896 assumed a similar wholesale character. The fact
that these strikes spread over the whole of Russia clearly showed how
deep the reviving popular movement was, and if we must speak of the
"spontaneous element" then, of course, we must admit that this strike
movement certainly bore a spontaneous character. But there is a differ-
ence between spontaneity and spontaneity. Strikes occurred in Russia,
in the 'seventies and in the 'sixties (and also in the first half of the nine-
teenth century), and these strikes were accompanied by the "sponta-
neous" destruction of machinery, etc. Compared with these "riots"
the strikes of the 'nineties might even be described as "conscious," to
such an extent do they mark the progress which the labour movement
had made for that period. This shows that the "spontaneous element,"
in essence, represents nothing more nor less than consciousness in an
embryonic form. Even the primitive riots expressed the awakening of
consciousness to a certain extent: the workers abandoned their age-long
faith in the permanence of the system which oppressed them. They began ...
I shall not say to understand, but to sense the necessity for collective
resistance, and definitely abandoned their slavish submission to their
superiors. But all this was more in the nature of outbursts of desperation
and vengeance than of struggle. The strikes of the 'nineties revealed far
greater flashes of consciousness: definite demands were put forward,,
the time to strike was carefully chosen, known cases and examples in
other places were discussed, etc. While the riots were simply uprisings
of the oppressed, the systematic strikes represented the class struggle
in embryo, but only in embryo. Taken by themselves, these strikes were
simply trade union struggles, but not yet Social-Democratic struggles*
They testified to the awakening antagonisms between workers and employ-
ers, but the workers were not and could not be conscious of the irrecon-
cilable antagonism of their interests to the whole of the modern politi-
cal and social system, i.e., it was not yet Social-Democratic consciousness.
In this sense, the strikes of the 'nineties, in spite of the enormous pro-
gress they represented as compared with the "riots," represented a pure*
ly spontaneous movement.
170 V. i. LENIN
We said that there could not yet be Social-Democratic consciousness
among the workers. This consciousness could only be brought to them from
-without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclu-
sively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness,
i.e., it may itself realize the necessity for combining in unions, for fighting
against the employers and for striving to compel the government to pass
necessary labour legislation, etc.* The theory of Socialism, however,
grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were
elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the
intellectuals. According to their social status, the founders of modern
-scientific Socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bour-
geois intelligentsia. Similarly, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-
Democracy arose quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the
labour movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the devel-
opment of ideas among the revolutionary Socialist intelligentsia. At
the time of which we are speaking, i.e., the middle of the 'nineties, this
•doctrine not only represented the completely formulated program of the
^Emancipation of Labour Group," but had already won the adherence of
the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia.
Hence, simultaneously, we had both the spontaneous awakening of the
masses of the workers, the awakening to conscious life and struggle, and
the striving of the revolutionary youth, armed with the Social-Democratic
theories, to reach the workers. In this connection it is particularly im-
portant to state the oft-forgotten (and comparatively little-known) fact
that the early Social-Democrats of that period zealously carried on econo-
mic agitation (being guided in this by the really useful instructions con-
tained in the pamphlet On Agitation that was still in manuscript), but they
•did not regard this as their sole task. On the contrary, right from the very
•beginning they advanced in general the historical tasks of Russian Social-
Democracy in their widest scope, and particularly the task of over-
throwing the autocracy. For example, towards the end of 1895, the
St. Petersburg group of Social-Democrats, which founded the "League of
Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class," prepared the first
number of the newspaper called Rabocheye Djelo. This number was ready
to go to press when it was seized by the gendarmes who, on the night of
December 8, 1895, raided the house of one of the members of the group,
Anatole Alekseyevich Vaneyev,** and so the original JRabocheye Dyelo
was not destined to see the light of day. The leading article in this number
* Trade unionism does not exclude "politics" altogether, as some imagine.
Trade unions have always conducted political (but not Social-Democratic) agita-
tion and struggle. We shall deal with the difference between trade union politics
and Social-Democratic politics in the next chapter.
** A. A. Vaneyev died in Eastern Siberia in 1899 from consumption, which
lie contracted as a result of his solitary confinement in prison prior to his banish-
ment. That is why we are able to publish the above information, the authenti-
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 171
(which perhaps in thirty years' time somtRusskaya S tar ina* will unearth
in the archives of the Department of Police) described the historical tasks
of the working class in Russia, of which the achievement of political lib-
erty is regarded as the most important. This number also contained
an article entitled "What Are Our Cabinet Ministers Thinking Of?"
which dealt with the breaking up of the elementary education committees
by the police. In addition, there was some correspondence, from St.
Petersburg, as well as from other parts of Russia (for example, a letter
on the assault on the workers in the Yaroslavl Province). This, if we are not
mistaken, "first attempt" of the Russian Social-Democrats of the 'nineties *
was not a narrow, local, and certainly not an "economic" newspaper, but
one that aimed to unite the strike movement with the revolutionary move-
ment against the autocracy, and to win all the victims of oppression
and political and reactionary obscurantism over to the side of Social-
Democracy. No one in the slightest degree acquainted with the state of
the movement at that period could doubt that such a paper would have
been fully approved of by the workers of the capital and the revolutionary
intelligentsia and would have had a wide circulation. The failure of the
enterprise merely showed that the Social-Democrats of that time were
unable to meet the immediate requirements of the time owing to their lack
of revolutionary experience and practical training. The same thing must
be said with regard to the St. Petersburg Sabochy Listok** and particularly
with regard to Rabochaya Oazeta and the Manifesto of the Russian Social-
Democratic Labour Party which was established in the spring of 1898.
Of course, we would not dream of blaming the Social-Democrats of that
time for this unpreparedness. But in order to obtain the benefit of the
experience of that movement, and to draw practical lessons from it,
we must thoroughly understand the causes and significance of this or that
shortcoming. For that reason it is extremely important to establish the
fact that part (perhaps even a majority) of the Social-Democrats, operat-
ing in the period of 1895-98, quite justly considered it possible even then,
at the very beginning of the "spontaneous" movement, to come forward
with a most extensive program and fighting tactics.*** The lack of training
of the majority of the revolutionaries, being quite a natural phenomenon,
city of which we guarantee, for it comes from persons who were closely and directly
acquainted with A. A. Vaneyev.
* Russkaya Starina (Russian Antiquary) — a monarchist historical month-
ly .—JS<J.
** St. Petersburg Rabochy Listok (Workers9 Sheet) — a newspaper published
in St. Petersburg by the "League of Struggle" in 1897. In all only two numbers
were issued. — Ed.
*** "Iskra, which adopts a hostile attitude towards the activities of the So-
cial-Democrats of the end of the 'nine ties, ignores the fact that at that time the con-
ditions for any other kind of work except fighting for petty demands were absent,"
declare the Economists in their Letter to Russian Social- Democratic Organs. (Iskra,
No. 12.) The facts quoted above show that the statement about "absent conditions"
172 V. I. LENIN
could not have aroused any particular fears. Since the tasks were properly
defined, since the energy existed for repeated attempts to fulfil these tasks,
the temporary failures were not such a great misfortune. Revolutionary
experience and organizational skill are things that can be acquired provid-
ed the desire is there to acquire these qualities, provided the shortcom-
ings are recognised — which in revolutionary activity is more than half-
way towards removing them!
It was a* great misfortune, however, when this consciousness began to
grow dim (it was very active among the workers of the groups men-
tioned), when people appeared — and even Social-Democratic organs —
who were prepared to regard shortcomings as virtues, who even tried to
invent a theoretical basis for slavish cringing before spontaneity. It is time
to summarize this tendency, the substance of which is incorrectly and too
narrowly described as "Economism."
B. Bowing to Spontaneity. Rdbochaya My si
Before dealing with the literary manifestation of this subservience,
we shomld like to mention the following characteristic fact (communi-
cated to us from the above-mentioned source), which throws some light
on the circumstances in which the two future conflicting tendencies in
Russian Social-Democracy arose and grew among the comrades working
in St. Petersburg. In the beginning of 1897, just prior to their banish-
ment, A. A. Vaneyev and several of his comrades* attended a private
meeting at which the "old" and "young" members of the ''League of
Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" gathered. The con-
versation centred chiefly around the question of organization, and partic-
ularly around the "rules for a workers' benefit fund," which, in their
final form, were published in Listok Rdbotnika (Worlcingman's Sheet),
No. 9-10, p. 46. Sharp differences were immediately revealed between
the "old" members ("Decembrists," as the St. Petersburg Social-De-
mocrats jestingly called them) and several of the "young" members
** the very opposite of the, truth. Not only at the end, but even in the middle of the
'nineties, all the conditions existed for other work, besides fighting for petty de-
mands, all the conditions — except the sufficient training of the leaders. Instead
of frankly admitting our, the ideologists', the leaders', lack of sufficient training —
the "Economists" try to throw the blame entirely upon the "absent conditions,"
upon the influences of material environment which determine the road from which
it will be impossible for any ideologist to divert the movement. What is this but
slavish cringing before spontaneity, but the fact that the "ideologists" are en-
amoured of their own shortcomings?
* This refers to Lenin, Krzhizhanovsky and other members of the St. Peters-
burg "League of Struggle" who were released from prison on February 26, 1897
And granted a few days leave prior to being banished to Siberia. They utilized
this period of grace to confer with the "young" leaders of the League who were
at liberty and inclining towards "Economism." — Ed.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 173
(who subsequently actively collaborated on the Mabochaya Mysl), and
a very heated discussion ensued. The "young" members defended the
main principles of the rules in the form in which they were published.
The "old" members said that this was not what was wanted, that first of
all it was necessary to consolidate the "League of Struggle" into an organ-
ization of revolutionaries which should have control of all the various
workers' benefit funds, students' propaganda circles, etc. It goes without
saying that the controversialists had no suspicion at that time that these
disagreements were the beginning of a divergence; on the contrary, they
regarded them as being of an isolated and casual nature. But this fact
shows that "Economism" did not arise and spread in Russia without a fight
on the part of the "old" Social-Democrats (the Economists of today are
apt to forget this). And if, in the main, this struggle has not left "docu*
mentary" traces behind it, it is solely because the membership of the
circles working at that time underwent such constant change that no con-
tinuity was established and, consequently, differences were not recorded
in any documents.
The appearance of JRabochaya Mysl brought Economism to the light
of day, but not all at once. We must picture to ourselves concretely the
conditions of the work and the short-lived character of the majority of
the Russian circles (and only those who have experienced this can
have any exact idea of it), in order to understand how much there was
accidental in the successes and failures of the new tendency in va-
rious towns, and why for a long time neither the advocates nor the oppo-
nents of this "new" tendency could make up their minds — indeed they
had no opportunity to do so — as to whether this was really a new tendency
or whether it was merely an expression of the lack of training of certain
individuals. For example, the first mimeographed copies of Kabochaya
Mysl never reached the great majority of Social-Democrats, and we are
able to refer to the leading article in the first number only because it
was reproduced in an article by V. I. (Listok Raboinika, No. 9-10,
p. 47 et sup.), who, of course, did not fail zealously but unreasonably
to extol the new paper, which was so different from the papers and the
schemes for papers mentioned above.* And this leading article deserves
to be dealt with in detail because it so strongly expresses the spirit of
Rnbochaya Mysl and Economism generally.
After referring to the fact that the arm of the "blue-coats"** could
never stop the progress of the labour movement, the leading article goes
on to say: "... The virility of the labour movement is due to the fact
* It should be stated in passing that the praise of Rabochaya Mysl in Novem-
ber 1898, when Economism had become fully defined, especially abroad, emanated
from that same V.I., who very soon after became one of the editors of Rabocheye
Dyelo. And yet Rabocheyc Dyelo denied that there were two tendencies in Russian
Social-Democracy, and continues to deny it to this day.
**Thc Russian gendarmes wore blue uniforms. — Ed.
1<4 V. I. LENIN
that the workers themselves are at last taking their fate into their own
hands, and out of the hands of the leaders/' and this fundamental thesis is
then developed in greater detail. As a matter of fact the leaders (t.e.f
the Social-Democrats, the organizers of the League of Struggle) were,
one might say, torn out of the hands of the workers by the police; yet
it is made to appear that the workers were fighting against the leaders,*
and eventually liberated themselves from their yokel Instead of calling
upon the workers to go forward towards the consolidation of the revolu-
tionary organization and to the expansion of political activity, they
began to call for a retreat to the purely trade union struggle. They an-
nounced that "the economic basis of the movement is eclipsed by the effort
never to forget the political ideal," and that the watchword for the move-
ment was "Fight for an economic position" [I] or what is still better,
"The workers for the workers." It was declared that strike funds "are
more valuable for the movement than a hundred other organizations"
(compare this statement made in October 1897 with the controversy
between the "Decembrists" and the young members in the beginning of
1897), and so forth. Catchwords like: "We must concentrate, not on the
'cream* of the workers, but on the 'average/ mass worker"; "Politics
always obediently follows economics,"** etc., etc., became the fashion,
and exercised an irresistible influence upon the masses of the youth who
were attracted to the movement, but who, in the majority of cases, were
acquainted only with legally expounded fragments of Marxism.
Consciousness was completely overwhelmed by spontaneity — the spon-
taneity of the "Social-Democrats" who repeated Mr. V.V.'s "ideas,"
the spontaneity of those workers who were carried away by the arguments
that a kopek added to a ruble was worth more than Socialism and polit-
ics, and that they must "fight, knowing that they are fighting not for
some future generation, but for themselves and their children." (Leading
article in Rabochaya My&l, No. 1.) Phrases like these have always been the
favourite weapons of the West European bourgeoisie, who, while hating
Socialism, strove (like the German "Sozial-Politiker" Hirsch) to transplant
English trade unionism to their own soil and to preach to the workers that
* That this simile is a correct one is shown by the following characteristic
fact. When, after the arrest of the "Decembrists," the news was spread among
the workers on the Schliisselburg Road that the discovery and arrest were facili-
tated by an agent-provocateur, N. N. Mikhailov, a dental surgeon, who had been
in contact with a group associated with the "Decembrists," they were so enraged
that they decided to kill him.
** These quotations are taken from the leading article in the first number
of Rabochaya Mysl already referred to. One can judge from this the degree of
theoretical training possessed by these "V'.V.'s of Russian Social-Democracy,"
who kept repeating the crude vulgarization of "economic materialism" at a time
when the Marxists were carrying on a literary war against the real V.V., who had
long ago been dubbed "a past master of reactionary deeds," for holding similar
views on the relation between politics and economics!
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 17&
the purely trade union struggle* is the struggle for themselves and for
their children, and not the struggle for some kind of Socialism for some
future generation. And now the "V.V.'s of Russian Social-Democracy'*
repeat these bourgeois phrases. It is important at this point to note three
circumstances which will be useful to us in our further analysis of contem-
porary differences.**
First of all, the overwhelming of consciousness by spontaneity, to which
we referred above, also took place spontaneously. This may sound like a
pun, but, alas, it is the bitter truth. It did not take place as a result of an
open struggle between two diametrically opposed points of view, in which
one gained the victory over the other; it occurred because an increasing
number of "old" revolutionaries were "torn away" by the gendarmes and
because increasing numbers of "young" "V.V.'s of Russian Social-Democ-
racy" came upon the scene. Everyone, who — I shall not say has par-
ticipated in the contemporary Russian movement but has at least breathed
its atmosphere — knows perfectly well that this was so. And the reason
why we, nevertheless, strongly urge the reader to ponder over this uni-
versally known fact, and why we quote the facts, as an illustration, so
to speak, about Rabocheye Dyelo as it first appeared, and about the con-
troversy between the "old" and the "young" at the beginning of 1897 —
is that certain persons are speculating on the public's (or the very youth-
ful youths ') ignorance of these facts, and are boasting of their "democracy /*
We shall return to this point further on.
Secondly, in the very first literary manifestation of Economism, we
observe the extremely curious and highly characteristic phenomenon —
for an understanding of the differences prevailing among contemporary
Social-Democrats — that the adherents of the "pure and simple" labour
movement, the worshippers of the closest "organic" (the term used by
Rabocheye Dyelo) contacts with the proletarian struggle, the opponents of
the non-labour intelligentsia (notwithstanding that it is a Socialist intel-
ligentsia) are compelled, in order to defend their positions, to resort to
the arguments of the bourgeois "pure and simple" trade unionists. This
shows that from the very outset, Rabochaya Mysl began unconsciously to
carry out the program of the Credo. This shows (what the Rabocheye
Dyelo cannot understand) that all worship of the spontaneity of the la-
bour movement, all belittling of the role of "the conscious element,"
of the role of the party of Social-Democracy, means, quite irrespective of
* The Germans even have a special expression: Nur-Gewerkschaftler, which
means an advocate of the "pure and simple" trade union struggle.
** We emphasize the word contemporary for the benefit of those who may
pharisaically shrug their shoulders and say: it is easy enough to attack Rabochaya
Mysl now, but is not all this ancient history? Mutato nomine de te fabula narrator
[change the name and the tale refers to you — Ed.], we reply to such contemporary
pharisees whose complete mental subjection to Rabochaya Mysl will be proved
further on.
V. I. LENIN
whether the belittler likes it or not, strengthening the influence, of the hour*
<geois ideology among the workers. All those who talk about "exaggerating
the importance of ideology,"* about exaggerating the role of the com
scious elements,** etc., imagine that the pure and simple labour movement
cln work out an independent ideology for itself, if only the workers "take
their fate out of the hands of the leaders." But this is a profound mistake.
To supplement what has been said above, we shall quote the following
profoundly true and important utterances by Karl Kautsky on the new
draft program of the Austrian Social-Democratic Party: ***
"Many of our revisionist critics believe that Marx asserted that
economic development and the class struggle create not only the
conditions for Socialist production, but also, and directly, the
consciousness [K.K.'s italics] of its necessity. And these critics
advance the argument that the most highly capitalistically devel-
oped country, England, is more remote than any other from this
consciousness. Judging from the draft, one might assume that the
committee which drafted the Austrian program shared this alleged
orthodox-Marxian view which is thus refuted. In the draft pro-
gram it is stated: 'The more capitalist development increases the
numbers of the proletariat, the more the proletariat is compelled
and becomes fit to fight against capitalism. The proletariat
becomes conscious' of the possibility of and necessity for Social-
ism. In this connection Socialist consciousness is represented as
a necessary and direct result of the proletarian class struggle.
But this is absolutely untrue. Of course, Socialism, as a theory,
has its roots in modern economic relationships just as the class
struggle of the proletariat has, and just as the latter emerges from
the struggle against the capitalist-created poverty and misery of
the masses. But Socialism and the class struggle arise side by side
and not one out of the other; each arises under different conditions.
Modern Socialist consciousness can arise only on the basis of pro-
found scientific knowledge. Indeed, modern economic science is as
much a condition for Socialist production as, say, modern technology
and the proletariat can create neither the one nor the other, no matter
how much it may desire to do so; both arise out of the modern social
process. The vehicles of science are not the proletariat, but the
bourgeois intelligentsia [K.K.'s italics]: it was in the minds of som^
members of this stratum that modern Socialism originated, and it
was they who communicated it to the more intellectually devel-
* Letter of the "Economists," in I*krat No. 12.
* * Babocheye Dyelo, No. 10.
*** Neue Zeit, 1901-02, XX, I, No. 3, p. 79. The committee's draft to which
Kautsky refers was passed by the Vienna Congress at the end of last year in a
slightly amended form.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 177
oped proletarians who, in their turn, introduced it into the pro-
letarian class struggle where conditions allow that to be done.
Thus, Socialist consciousness is something introduced into the
proletarian class struggle from without (von Aussen Hineingetrage-
nes)9 and not something that arose within it spontaneously (urnnich-
sig). Accordingly, the old Hainfeld program quite rightly stated
that the task of Social-Democracy is to imbue the proletariat (lit-
erally: saturate the proletariat) with the consciousness of its position
and the consciousness of its tasks. There would be no need for this
if consciousness emerged of itself from the class struggle. The new
draft copied this proposition from the old program, and attached it
to the proposition mentioned above. But this completely broke the
line of thought. ..."
Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology being developed
by the masses of the workers in the process of their movement* the only
choice is: either the bourgeois or the Socialist ideology. There is no middle
course (for humanity has not created a "third" ideology, and, moreover,
in a society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class or
above-class ideology). Hence, to belittle the Socialist ideology in any
way, to turn away from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen
bourgeois ideology. There is a lot of talk about spontaneity, but the spon-
taneous development of the labour movement leads to its becoming subor-
dinated to the bourgeois ideology, leads to its developing according to the
program of the Credo, for the spontaneous labour movement is pure and
simple trade unionism, is Nur-Gewerkscliaftlerei, and trade unionism
means the ideological enslavement of the workers to the bourgeoisie. Hence,
our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to di-
vert the labour movement from its spontaneous, trade unionist striving
to go under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing
of revolutionary Social-Democracy. The phrases employed by the authors
of the "economic" letter in Iskra, No. 12, about the efforts of the most
inspired ideologists not being able to divert the labour movement from the
* This does not mean, of course, that the workers have no part in creating
such an ideology. But they take part not as workers, but as Socialist theoreticians,
like Proudhon and Welding-; in other words, they take part only to the extent
that they are able, more or less, to acquire the knowledge of their age and advance
that knowledge. And in order that work ing men may be able to do this more often,
efforts must be made to raise the level of the consciousness of the workers generally;
care must be taken that the workers do not confine themselves to the artificially
restricted limits of "literature for workers" but that they study general literature
to an increasing degree. It would be even more true to say "are not confined,"
instead of "do not confine themselves," because the workers themselves wish
to read and do read all that is written for the intelligentsia and it is only a few
(bad) intellectuals who believe that it is sufficient "for the workers" to be told
a few things about factory conditions, and to repeat over and over again what
has long been known.
12—685
8 V. I. LENIN
path that is determined by the interaction of the material elements and
the material environment, are tantamount to the abandonment of Socialism,
and if only the authors of this letter were capable of fearlessly considering
what they say to its logical conclusion, as everyone who enters the arena
of literary and public activity should do, they would have nothing to do
but "fold their useless arms over their empty breasts" and . . . leave the
field of action to the Struves and Prokopoviches who are dragging the
labour movement "along the line of least resistance," i.e., along the line
of bourgeois trade unionism, or to the Zubatovs who are dragging it along
the line of clerical and gendarme "ideology."
Recall the example of Germany. What was the historical service Las-
salle rendered to the German labour movement? It was that he diverted
that movement from the path of trade unionism and co-operation preached
by the Progressives along which it had been travelling spontaneously
(with the benign assistance of Schulze-Delilzsche and those like him). To ful-
fil a task like that it was necessary to do something altogether different
from indulging in talk about belittling the spontaneous element, about
the tactics-process and about the interaction between elements and envi-
ronment, etc. A desperate struggle against spontaneity had to be carried
on, and only after such a struggle, extending over many years, was it
possible to convert the working population of Berlin from a bulwark of the
Progressive Party into one of the finest strongholds of Social-Democracy.
This fight is not finished even now (as those who learn the history of the
German movement from Prokopovich, and its philosophy from Struve,
believe). Even now the German working class is, so to speak, broken up
into a number of ideologies. A section of the workers is organized in Cath-
olic and monarchist labour unions; another section is organized in the
Hirsch-Duncker unions, founded by the bourgeois worshippers of English
trade unionism, while a third section is organized in Social-Democratic
trade unions. The last is immeasurably more numerous than the rest, but
Social-Democracy was able to achieve this superiority, and will be able
to maintain it, only by unswervingly fighting against all other ideologies.
But why, the reader will ask, does the spontaneous movement, the move-
ment along the line of least resistance, lead to the domination of the bour-
geois ideology? For the simple reason that the bourgeois ideology is far
older in origin than the Socialist ideology; because it is more fully devel-
oped and because it possesses immeasurably more opportunities for being
spread.* And the younger the Socialist movement is in any given coun-
try, the more vigorously must it fight against all attempts to
entrench non-Socialist ideology, and the more strongly must it warn the
* It is often said: the working class spontaneously gravitates towards Social-
ism. This is perfectly true in the sense that Socialist theory defines the causes of
the misery of the working class more profoundly and more correctly than any
other theory, and for that reason the workers are able to appreciate it so easily,
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 179
workers against those bad counsellors who shout against "exaggerating
the conscious elements," etc. The authors of the economic letter, in unison
with Rabocheye Dyelo, declaim against the intolerance that is charac-
teristic of the infancy of the movement. To this we reply: yes, our movement
is indeed in its infancy, and in order that it may grow up the more quickly,
it must become infected with intolerance against all those who retard its
growth by subservience to spontaneity. Nothing is so ridiculous and harm-
ful as pretending that we are "old hands" who have long ago experienced
all the decisive episodes of the struggle!
Thirdly, the first number of Rabochaya Mysl shows that the term "Econ-
omism" (which, of course, we do not propose to abandon because this ap-
pellation has more or less established itself) does not adequately convey
the real character of the new tendency. Rabochaya Mysl does not altogether
repudiate the political struggle: the rules for a workers' benefit fund pub-
lished in Rabochaya Mysl, No. 1, contains a reference to fighting against the
government. Rabochaya Mysl believes, however, that "politics always
obediently follows economics" (and Rabocheye Dyelo gives a variation of
this thesis when, in its program, it asserts that "in Russia more than in
any other country, the economic struggle is inseparable from the political
struggle"). If by politics is meant Social- Democratic politics, then the
postulates advanced by Rabochaya Mysl and Rabocheye Dyelo are ab-
solutely wrong. The economic struggle of the workers is very often
connected (although not inseparably) with bourgeois politics, clerical
politics, etc., as we have already seen. If by politics is meant trade union
politics, i.e., the common striving of all workers to secure from the govern-
ment measures for the alleviation of the distress characteristic of
their position, but which do not abolish that position, i.e., which do
not remove the subjection of labour to capital, then Rabocheye Dyelo ys postu-
late is correct. That striving indeed is common to the British trade union sts
who are hostile to Socialism, to the Catholic workers, to the "Zubatov"
workers, etc. There are politics and politics. Thus, we see that
Rabochaya Mysl does not so much deny the political struggle as bow
to its spontaneity, to its lack of consciousness. While fully recognizing the
political struggle (it would be more correct to say the political desires and
demands of the workers), which arises spontaneously from the labour
movement itself, it absolutely refuses independently to work out a specifi-
cally Social- Democratic policy corresponding to the general tasks of
Socialism and to contemporary conditions in Russia. Further on we shall
show that Rabocheye Dyelo commits the same error.
provided, however, that this theory does not step aside for spontaneity and provided
it subordinates spontaneity to itself. Usually this is taken for granted, but Rabo-
cheye Dyelo forgets or distorts this obvious thing. The working class spontaneously
gravitates towards Socialism, but the more widespread (and continuously revived
in the most diverse forms) bourgeois ideology spontaneously imposes itself upon
the working class still more.
12*
180 V. I. LENIN
C. The "Self-Emancipation Group" * and BABOCHEYE DYELO
We -have dealt at such length with the little-known and now almost
forgotten leading article in the first number of Rabochaya Mysl because it
was the first and most striking expression of that general stream of thought
which afterwards emerged into the light of day in innumerable stream-
lets. V. I. #ras absolutely right when, in praising the first number and
the leading article of Rabochaya Mysl, he said that it was written in a
"sharp and provocative" style. (Listok Rabotnika, No. 9-10, p. 49.)
Every man with convictions who thinks he has something new to say
writes "provocatively" and expresses his views strongly. Only those who are
accustomed to sitting between two stools lack "provocativeness"; only
such people are able to praise the provocativeness of Rabochaya Myal
one day, and attack the "provocative polemics" of its opponents the
next.
We shall not dwell on the Special Supplement to Rabochaya Mysl
(further on we shall have occasion, on a number of points, to refer to this
work, which expresses the ideas of the Economists more consistently than
any other) but shall briefly mention the Manifesto of the Self-Emanci-
pation of the Workers Group. (March 1899, reprinted in the London Naka-
nunye [On the Eve]9No. 7, June 1899.) The authors of this manifesto quite
rightly say that "the workers of Russia are only just awakening, are only
just looking around, and instinctively clutch a' the jirs* mea^s of sirug-
glc tha come fo their ha <ds." But from this correct observation, they draw
the same incorrect conclusion that is drawn by Rabochaya Mysl, forgetting
that instinct is that unconsciousness (spontaneity) to the aid of which
Socialists must come; that the "first means of struggle that comes to their
hands" will always be, in modern society, the trade union means of strug-
gle, and the "first" ideology "that comes to hand" will be the bourgeois
(trade union) ideology. Similarly, these authors do not "repudiate" poli-
tics, they merely say (merely!), repeating what was said by Mr. V.V., that
politics is the superstructure, and therefore, "political agitation must be
the .superstructure to the agitation carried on in favour of the economic
struggle; it must arise on the basis of this struggle and follow in its wake."
As for Rabocheye Dyelo, it commenced its activity by "a defence" of
the Economists. It uttered a downright falsehood in its very first number
(No. 1, pp. 141-42) when it stated that "we do not know which young
comrades Axelrod referred to" in his well-known pamphlet,** in which he
uttered a warning to the Economists. In the controversy that flared up
with Axelrod and Plekhanov over this falsehood, Rabocheye Dyelo was
* The "Self -Emancipation of the Working Class Group" — a small, practically
un influential organization of an "Economist" trend which originated in St. Pe-
tersburg at the end of 1898. — Ed.
** The Contemporary Tasks and Tactics of the Russian Social- Democrat* >
Geneva, 1898. Two letters written to Rabochaya Qazeta in 1897.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 181
compelled to admit that "by expressing ignorance, it desired to defend
all the younger Social-Democrats abroad from this unjust accusation"
(Axelrod accused the Economists of having a restricted outlook). As a
matter of fact this accusation was absolutely just, and Rabocheye Dyelo
knows perfectly well that, among others, it applied to V.I., a member of
its editorial staff. We shall observe in passing that in this controversy
Axelrod was absolutely right and Rabocheye Dyelo was absolutely wrong in
their respective interpretations of my pamphlet The Tasks of Russian
Social- Democrats. That pamphlet was written in 1897, before the appear-
ance of Babochaya Mysl when I thought, and rightly thought, that the
original tendency of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle, which I described
above, was the predominant one. At all events, that tendency was the pre-
dominant one until the middle of 1898. Consequently, in its attempt to
refute the existence and dangers of Economism, Rabocheye Dyelo had no
right whatever to refer to a pamphlet which expressed views that were
squeezed out by "Economist" views in St. Petersburg in 1897-98.
But Rabocheye Dyelo not only "defended" the Economists — it itself
constantly fell into fundamental Economist errors. The cause of these
errors is to be found in the ambiguity of the interpretation given to the
following thesis in Rabocheye Dyelo's program: "We consider that the
most important phenomenon of Russian life, the one that will mostly
determine the tasks [our italics] and the character of the literary activity
of the Union, is the mass labour movement [Rabocheye Dyelo1 s italics]
that has arisen in recent years." That the mass movement is a most impor-
tant phenomenon is a fact about which there can be no dispute. But the
crux of the question is, what is the meaning of the phrase: the mass labour
movement will "determine the tasks"? It may be interpreted in one of
two ways. Either it means worshipping the spontaneity of this movement,
i.e., reducing the role of Social-Democracy to mere subservience to the
labour movement as such (the interpretation given to it by Rabochaya
Mysl, the "Self- Emancipation Group" and other Economists); or it may
mean that the mass movement puts before us new, theoretical, political
and organizational tasks, far more complicated than those that might have
satisfied us in the period before the rise of the mass movement. Rabocheye
Dyelo inclined and still inclines towards the first interpretation, for
it said nothing definitely about new tasks, but argued all the time as if
the "mass movement" relieved us of the necessity of clearly appreciating and
fulfilling the tasks it sets before us. We need only point out that Raboch-
eye Dyelo considered that it was impossible to set the overthrow of the
autocracy as the first task of the mass labour movement, and that it de-
graded this task (ostensibly in the interests of the mass movement) to the
struggle for immediate political demands. (Reply, p. 25.)
We shall pass over the article by B. Krichevsky, the editor of
Rabocheye Dyelo, entitled "The Economic and Political Struggle in the
Russian Movement," published in No. 7 of that paper, in which these very
182 V. I. LENIN
mistakes* are repeated, and take up Kabocheye Dyelo, No. 10. We shall
not, of course, enter in detail into the various objections raised by B.Kri-
chevsky and Martynov against Zarya and Iskra. What interests us here
solely is the theoretical position taken up by Rdbocheye Dyelo, No. 10.
For example, we shall not examine the literary curiosity — that Babocheye
Dyelo saw a "diametrical contradiction" between the proposition:
"Social-Democracy does not tie its hands, it does not restrict its
activities to some preconceived plan or method of political struggle;
it recognizes all methods of struggle, as long as they correspond
to the forces at the disposal of the Party. . . ." (Iskra, No.l.**)
and the proposition:
"without a strong organization, tested in the political struggle
carried on under all circumstances and in all periods, there can be
no talk of a systematic plan of activity, enlightened by firm prin-
ciples and unswervingly carried out, which alone is worthy of being
called tactics." (Iskra, No. 4.***)
To confuse the recognition, in principle, of all means of struggle, of
all plans and methods, as long as they are expedient — with the necessity
at a given political moment for being guided by a strictly adhered-to plan,
if we are to talk of tactics, is tantamount to confusing the recognition
by medical science of all kinds of treatment of diseases with the necessity
for adopting a certain definite method of treatment for a given disease.
* The "stages theory," or the theory of "timid zigzags" in the political struggle,
is expressed in this article approximately in the following way: "Political demands,
which in their character are common to the whole of Russia, should, however, at
first [this was written in August 1900!] correspond to the experience gained by the
given stratum [sic\] of workers in the economic struggle. Only [!] on the basis
of this experience can and should political agitation be taken up," etc. (P. 11.)
On page 4, the author, protesting against what he regards as the absolutely un-
founded charge of Economist heresy, pathetically exclaims: "What Social-Democrat
does not know that according to the theories of Marx and Engels the economic
interests of various classes are the decisive factors in history, and, consequently ,
that the proletariat's struggle for the defence of its economic interests must be
of first-rate importance in its class development and struggle for emancipation?"
(Our italics.) The word "consequently" is absolutely out of place. The fact that
economic interests are a decisive factor does not in the least imply that the economic
(i.e., trade union) struggle must be the main factor, for the essential and "deci-
sive* interests of classes can be satisfied only by radical political changes in general.
In particular the fundamental economic interests of the proletariat can be satis-
fied only by a political revolution that will substitute the dictatorship of the
proletariat for the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. B. Krichevsky repeats the
arguments of the "V.V.'s of Russian Social-Democracy" (i.e., politics follow
economics, etc.) and the Bernsteinians of German Social-Democracy (for example
by arguments like these, Woltmann tried to prove that the workers must first
of all acquire "economic power" before they can think about political revolution).
•• See Lenin, Selected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. II, p. 14— "The Urgent Tasks
of Our Movement." — Ed.
*** Ibid., p. 16— "Where To Begin?"— Ed.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 183
The point is, however, that Rabocheye Dyelo, while suffering from a
disease which we have called worshipping spontaneity, refuses to recog-
nize any "method of treatment" for that disease. Hence, it made the
remarkable discovery that a "tactics-as-a-plan contradicts the funda-
mental spirit of Marxism" (No. 10, p. 18), that tactics are "a process of
growth of Party tasks, which grow with the Party." (P. 11, Rabocheye Dyelo's
italics.) The latter remark has every chance of becoming a celebrated
maxim, a permanent monument to the "tendency" of Rabocheye Dyelo.
To the question: whither? a leading organ replies: movement is a process
altering the distance between the starting point and the subsequent stages
of the movement. This matchless example of profundity is not merely a
literary curiosity (if it were, it would not be worth dealing with at
length), but theprogramof the whole tendency, i.e., the program which R. M.
(in the Special Supplement to Rabochaya Mysl) expressed in the words:
"That struggle is desirable which is possible, and the struggle which is pos-
sible is the one that is going on at the given moment." It is the tendency
of unbounded opportunism, which passively adapts itself to spontaneity.
A "tactics-as-a-plan contradicts the fundamental spirit of Marxism."
But this is a libel on Marxism; it is like the caricature of it that was pre-
sented to us by the Narodniks in their fight against us. It means putting
restraint on the initiative and energy of class-conscious fighters, whereas
Marxism, on the contrary, gives a gigantic impetus to the initiative and
energy of Social-Democrats, opens up for them the widest perspectives
and, if one may so express it, places at their disposal the mighty force
of millions and millions of workers "spontaneously" rising for the strug-
gle. The whole history of international Social -Democracy seethes with
plans advanced first by one and then by another political leader; some
confirming the far-sightedness and correct political and organizational
insight of their authors and others revealing their shortsightedness and
lack of political judgment. At the time when Germany was at one of the
most important turning points in its history, the time of the establish-
ment of the Empire, the opening of the Reichstag and the granting
of universal suffrage, Liebknecht had one plan for Social-Democratic
policy and work and Schweitzer had another. When the Anti-Socialist
Law came down on the heads of the German Socialists, Most and Hassel-
mann had one plan, that is, to call for violence and terror; Hochberg,
Schramm and (partly) Bernstein had another, which they began to preach
to the Social-Democrats, somewhat as follows: they themselves had pro-
voked the passing of the Anti-Socialist Law by being unreasonably bit-
ter and revolutionary, and must now show that they deserve pardon by
exemplary conduct. There was yet a third plan proposed by those who
paved the way for and carried out the publication of an illegal organ.
It is easy, of course, in retrospect, many years after the fight over the
selection of the path to be followed has ended, and after history has pro-
nounced its verdict as to the expediency of the path selected, to utter
184 V. I. LENIN
profound maxims about the growth of Party tasks that grow with the
Party. But at a time of confusion,* when the Russian "critics" and Eco-
nomists degrade Social-Democracy to the level of trade unionism, and
when the terrorists are strongly advocating the adoption of a " tactics- as- a-
plan" that repeats the old mistakes, at such a time, to confine oneself
to such profundities, means simply issuing oneself a "certificate of
mental poverty." At a time when many Russian Social -Democrats suffer
from lack of initiative and energy, from a lack of "scope of political pro-
paganda, agitation and organization,"** a lack of "plans" for a broader
organization of revolutionary work, at such a time, to say: a "tactics-
as-a-plan contradicts the fundamental spirit of Marxism," not only
means theoretically vulgarizing Marxism, also practically dragging
the Party backward. Rabocheye Dyelo goes on sermonizing:
"The revolutionary Social-Democrat is only confronted by the
task of accelerating objective development by his conscious work;
it is not his task to obviate it or substitute his own subjective plans
for this development. Iskra knows all this in theory. But the
enormous importance which Marxism quite justly attaches to con-
scious revolutionary work causes it in practice, owing to its doctri-
naire view of tactics, to belittle the significance of the objective or
the spontaneous element of development." (P. 18.)
Another example of the extraordinary theoretical confusion worthy
of Mr. V.V. and that fraternity. We would ask our philosopher: how
may a deviser of subjective plans "belittle" objective development?
Obviously by losing sight of the fact that this objective development
creates or strengthens, destroys or weakens certain classes, strata, groups,
nations, groups of nations, etc., and in this way creates a definite inter-
national political grouping of forces, determining the position of revo-
lutionary parties, etc. If the deviser of plans did that, his mistake would
not be that he belittled the spontaneous element, but that he belittled
the conscious element , for he would then show that he lacked the "conscious-
ness" that would enable him properly to understand objective develop-
ment. Hence, the very talk about "estimating the relative significance"
(Rabocheye Dyelo's italics) of spontaneity and consciousness sufficiently
reveals a complete lack of "consciousness." If certain "spontaneous ele-
ments of development" can be grasped at all by human understanding,
then an incorrect estimation of them would be tantamount to "belittling
the conscious element." But if they cannot be grasped, then we cannot
be aware of them, and therefore cannot speak of them. What is B. Kri-
* Sin Jahr der Verwirrung [A Year of Confusion] is the title Mehring gave
to the chapter of his History of German Social- Democracy in which he describes
the hesitancy and lack of determination displayed at first by the Socialists in
selecting the "tactics-as-a-plan" for the new situation.
•* Leading article in Iskra, No. 1, "The Urgent Tasks of Our Movement,"
see Lenin, Selected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. II, p. 12.-— Ed.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 185
chevsky arguing about then? If he thinks that lakra's "subjective plans**
are erroneous (as he in fact declares them to be), then he ought to show
what objective facts arc ignored in these plans, and then charge Iskra
with a lack of consciousness for ignoring them, with, to use his own words,
"belittling the conscious element." If, however, while being displeased
with subjective plans he can bring forward no other argument than that
of "belittling the spontaneous element" (!!) he merely shows: 1) that he
theoretically understands Marxism A la Kareyevs and Mikhailovskys,
who have been sufficiently ridiculed by Beltov,* and 2) that, practi-
cally, he is quite pleased with the "spontaneous elements of development"
that have drawn our "legal Marxists" towards Bernsteinism and our
Social-Democrats towards Economism, and that he is full of wrath
against those who have determined at all costs to divert Russian Social-
Democracy from the path of "spontaneous n development.
Rabocheye Dyelo accuses Iskra and Zarya of "setting up their program
against the movement, like a spirit hovering over the formless chaos."
(P. 29.) But what else is the function of Social-Democracy if not to be
a "spirit," not only hovering over the spontaneous movement, but also
raising the movement to the level of "its program"? Surely, it is not its
function to drag at the tail of the movement: at best, this would be of no
service to the movement; at the worst, it would be very, very harmful.
Rabocheye Dyelo, however, not only follows this "tactics-as-a-process,"
but elevates it to a principle, so that it would be more correct to describe
its tendency not as opportunism, but as Ichvostism (from the wordMvostf**).
And it must be admitted that those who have determined always to follow
behind the movement like a tail are absolutely and forever ensured against
"belittling the spontaneous element of development."
* * *
And so, we have become convinced that the fundamental error commit-
ted by the "new tendency" in Russian Social-Democracy lies in its sub-
servience to spontaneity, and its failure to understand that the sponta-
neity of the masses demands a mass of consciousness from us Social-
Democrats. The greater the spontaneous upsurge of the masses, the more
widespread the movement becomes, so much the more rapidly grows the
demand for greater consciousness in the theoretical, political and organi-
zational work of Social-Democracy.
The spontaneous upsurge of the masses in Russia proceeded (and con-
tinues) with such rapidity that the young untrained Social-Democrats
proved unfitted for the gigantic tasks that confronted them. This lack of
training is our common misfortune, the misfortune of all Russian Social-
Democrats. The upsurge of the masses proceeded and spread uninterrupt-
* The pseudonym of Plckhanov. — El.
** Khvost— the Russian for tail.— Ed.
186 V. I. LENIN
edly and continuously; it not only continued in the places it began, but
spread to new localities and to new strata of the population (influenced
by the labour movement, the ferment among the students, the intellectu-
als generally and even among the peasantry revived). Revolutionaries,
however, lagged behind this upsurge of the masses both in their "theories"
and in their practical activity; they failed to establish an uninterrupted
organization having continuity with the past, and capable of leading the
whole movement.
In Chapter I, we proved that Rabocheye Dyelo degraded our theoretical
tasks and that it "spontaneously" repeated the fashionable catchword
"freedom of criticism": that those who repeated this catchword lacked
the "consciousness" to understand that the positions of the opportunist
"critics" and the revolutionaries, in Germany and in Russia, are
diametrically opposed to each other.
In the following chapters, we shall show how this worship of sponta-
neity found expression in the sphere of the political tasks and the organ-
izational work of Social-Democracy.
Ill
TRADE UNION POLITICS AND SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC POLITICS
We shall start off again by praising Rabocheye Dyelo. Martynov gave
his article in No. 10 of Rabocheye Dyelo, on his differences with Iskra,
the title "Exposure Literature and the Proletarian Struggle." He for-
mulated the substance of these differences as follows:
"We cannot confine ourselves entirely to exposing the system
that stands in its [the labour party's] path of development. We must
also respond to the immediate and current interests of the prole-
tariat." ". . . Iskra ... is in fact the organ of revolutionary oppo-
sition that exposes the state of affairs in our country, particularly
the political state of affairs. . . . We, however, work and shall con-
tinue to work for the cause of labour in close organic contact with
the proletarian struggle." (P. 63.)
One cannot help being grateful to Martynov for this formula. It is
of outstanding general interest because substantially it embraces not only
our disagreements with Rabocheye Dyelo, but the general disagreement
between ourselves and the "Economists" concerning the political struggle.
We have already shown that the "Economists" do not altogether repudiate
"politics," but that they are constantly deviating from the Social-Demo-
cratic conception of politics to the trade unionist conception. Martynov
deviates in exactly the same way, and we agree, therefore, to take his
views as an example of Economist error on this question. As we shall
WHAT 13 TO BE DONE? 187
endeavour to prove, neither the authors of the Special Supplement to
Rabochaya Mysl> nor the authors of the manifesto issued by the "Self-
Emancipation Group," nor the authors of the Economist letter published
in Iskra, No. 12, will have any right to complain against this choice.
A. Political Agitation and Its Restriction by the Economists
Everyone knows that the spread and consolidation of the economic*
struggle of the Russian workers proceeded simultaneously with the crea-
tion of a "literature" exposing economic conditions, i.e., factory and
industrial conditions. These "leaflets" were devoted mainly to the expo-
sure of factory conditions, and very soon a passion for exposures was
roused among the workers. As soon as the workers realized that the So-
cial-Democratic circles desired to and could supply them with a new
kind of leaflet that told the whole truth about their poverty-stricken
lives, about their excessive toil and their lack of rights, correspondence
began to pour in from the factories and workshops. This "exposure-
literature" created a huge sensation not only in the particular factory
dealt with, the conditions of which were exposed in a given leaflet, but
in all the factories to which news had spread about the facts exposed.
And as the poverty and want among the workers in the various enter-
prises and in the various trades are pretty much the same, the "truth about
the life of the workers" roused the admiration of all. Even among the.
most backward workers, a veritable passion was roused to "go into print" —
a noble passion for this rudimentary form of war against the whole of
the modern social system which is based upon robbery and oppression.
And in the overwhelming majority of cases these "leaflets" were in truth
a declaration of war, because the exposures had a terrifically rousing
effect upon the workers; it stimulated them to put forward common de-
mands for the removal of the most glaring evils and roused in them a readi-
ness to support these demands with strikes. Finally, the employers
themselves were compelled to recognize the significance of these leaflets
as a declaration of war, so much so that in a large number of cases they
did not even wait for the outbreak of hostilities. As is always the case,
the mere publication of these exposures made them effective, and they
acquired the significance of a strong moral force. On more than one occa-
sion, the mere appearance of a leaflet proved sufficient to secure the sat-
isfaction of all or part of the demands put forward. In a word, economic
(factory) exposures have been and are an important lever in the economic
* In order to avoid misunderstanding we deem it necessary to state that
by economic struggle, here and throughout this pamphlet, we mean (in accordance
with the meaning o£the term as it has become accepted among us) the "practical
economic struggle" which Engels, in the passage quoted above, described as**resist-
ance to capitalists," and which in free countries is known as the trade union
struggle.
188 V. I. LENIN
struggle and they will continue to be such as long as capitalism, which
creates the need for the workers to defend themselves, exists. Even in
the most advanced countries of Europe today, the exposure of the evils in
some backward trade, or in some forgotten branch of domestic industry,
serves as a starting point for the awakening of class consciousness, for the
beginning of a trade union struggle, and for the spread of Socialism.111
Recently^ the overwhelming majority of Russian Social-Democrats
were almost wholly engaged in this work of organizing the exposure of
factory conditions. It is sufficient to refer to the columns of jRabochaya
Mysl to judge to what extent they were engaged in it. So much so, indeed,
that they lost sight of the fact that this, taken by itself 9 is not in essence
Social-Democratic work, but merely trade union work. As a matter of
fact, these exposures merely dealt with the relations between the workers
in a given trade and their immediate employers, and all that they achieved
was that the vendors of labour power learned to sell their "commod-
ity" on better terms and to fight the purchasers of labour power
over a purely commercial deal. These exposures could have served (if pro-
perly utilized by an organization of revolutionaries) as a beginning and a
constituent part of Social-Democratic activity, but they could also have
led (and given a worshipful attitude towards spontaneity was bound to
lead) to a "pure and simple" trade union struggle and to a non-Social-
Dcmocratic labour movement. Social-Democrats lead the struggle of
the working class not only for better terms for the sale of labour power,
but also for the abolition of the social system which compels the pro-
pertyless to sell themselves to the rich. Social-Democracy represents the
working class, not in relation to a given group of employers, but in its
relation to all classes in modern society, to the state as an organized polit-
ical force. Hence, it not only follows that Social-Democrats must not
confine themselves entirely to the economic struggle; they must not even
allow the organization of economic exposures to become the predominant
part of their activities. We must actively take up the political education
of the working class and the development of its political consciousness.
* In the present chapter, we deal only with the political struggle, whether
it is to be understood in its broader or narrower sense. Therefore, we refer only
in passing, merely to point out a curiosity, to the accusation that Rabocheye
Dyelo hurls against Iskra of being "too restrained" in regard to the economic
struggle. (Two Congresses, p. 27, rehashed by Martynov in his pamphlet Social-
Democracy and the Working Class.) If those who make this accusation counted
up in terms of hundredweights or reams, as they are so fond of doing, what has
been said about the economic struggle in the industrial column of Iskra in one
year's issue, and compared this with the industrial columns of Rabocheye Dyelo
and Rabochaya Mysl taken together, they would see that they lag very much
behind even in this respect. Apparently, the consciousness of this simple
truth compels them to resort to arguments which clearly reveal their confusion.
"I*1cra9" they write, "willy-nilly [I] is compelled [!] to take note of the
Imperative demands of life and to publish at least [!!] correspondence about the
labour movement." (Two Congresses, p.27.) Now this is really a crushing argument!
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 189
Now, after Zarya and Iskra have made the first attack upon Economism
"all are agreed" on this (although some agreed only nominally, as
we shall soon prove).
The question now arises: what must political education consist of?
Is it sufficient to confine oneself to the propaganda of working-class hos-
tility to the autocracy? Of course not. It is not enough to explain to the
workers that they are politically oppressed (no more than it was to explain
to them that their interests were antagonistic to the interests of the employ-
ers). Advantage must be taken of every concrete example of this oppres-
sion for the purpose of agitation (in the same way that we began to use
concrete examples of economic oppression for the purpose of agitation).
And inasmuch as political oppression affects all sorts of classes in society,
inasmuch as it manifests itself in various spheres of life and activity,
industrial, civic, personal, family, religious, scientific, etc., etc., is
it not evident that we shall not be fulfilling our task of developing the
political consciousness of the workers if we do not undertake the organiza-
tion of the political exposure of the autocracy in all its aspects? In order
to carry on agitation around concrete examples of oppression, these exam-
ples must be exposed (just as it was necessary to expose factory evils in
order to carry on economic agitation).
One would think that this was clear enough. It turns out, however,
that "all" are agreed that it is necessary to develop political conscious-
ness, in all its aspects , only in words. It turns out that Rabocheye Dyelo,
for example, has not only failed to take up the task of organizing (or to
make a start in organizing) all-sided political exposure, but is even trying
to drag Iskra, which has undertaken this task, away from it. Listen to
this: "The political struggle of the working class is merely [it is precisely
not "merely"] the most developed, widest and most effective form of eco-
nomic struggle." (Program of Rabocheye Dyelo, published in No. 1, p. 3.)
"The Social-Democrats are now confronted with the task of, as far as possi-
ble, lending the economic struggle itself a political character." (Martynov,
Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10, p. 42.) "The economic struggle is the most wide-
ly applicable method of drawing the masses into active political strug-
gle." (Resolution passed by the Congress of the Union and "amendments"
thereto, Two Congresses, pp. 11 and 17.) As the reader will observe, all
these postulates permeate Rabocheye Dyelo, from its very first number
to the latest "Instructions to the Editors," and all of them evidently
express a single view regarding political agitation and the political
struggle. Examine this view from the standpoint of the opinion prevail-
ing among all Economists, that political agitation must follow economic
agitation. Is it true that, in general,111 the economic struggle "is the most
* We say "in general," because Rabocheye Dyelo speaks of general principles
and of the general tasks of the whole Party. Undoubtedly, cases occur in practice,
when politics must follow economics, but only Economists can say a thing like
that in a resolution that was intended to apply to the whole of Russia. Cases do
190 V. I. LENIN
widely applicable method" of drawing the masses into the political
struggle? It is absolutely untrue. All and sundry manifestations of police
tyranny and autocratic outrage, in addition to the evils connected with
the economic struggle, are equally "widely applicable" as a means of
"drawing in" the masses. The tyranny of the Zemsky Nachalniks, the
flogging of the peasantry, the corruption of the officials, the conduct
of the police towards the "common people" in the cities, the fight against
the famine-stricken and the suppression of the popular striving towards
enlightenment and knowledge, the extortion of taxes, the persecution
of the religious sects, the harsh discipline in the army, the militarist
conduct towards the students and the liberal intelligentsia — all these and
a thousand other similar manifestations of tyranny, though not directly
connected with the "economic" struggle, do they, in general, represent
a less "widely applicable" method and subject for political agitation
and for drawing the masses into the political struggle? The very opposite
is the case. Of all the innumerable cases in which the workers suffer
(either personally or those closely associated with them) from tyranny,
violence and lack of rights, undoubtedly only a relatively few represent
cases of police tyranny in the economic struggle as such. Why then should
we, beforehand, restrict the scope of political agitation by declaring only
one of the methods to be "the most widely applicable," when Social-
Democrats have other, generally speaking, no less "widely applicable"
means?
The Union attaches significance to the fact that it replaced the phrase
"most widely applicable method" by the phrase "a better method,"
contained in one of the resolutions of the Fourth Congress of the Jewish
Labour League (Bund). We confess that we find it difficult to say which
of these resolutions is the better one. In our opinion both are "worse"
Both the Union and the Bund fall into the error (partly, perhaps, uncon-
sciously, owing to the influence of tradition) of giving an economic, trade
unionist interpretation to politics. The fact that this error is expressed
either by the word "better" or by the words "most widely applicable"
makes no material difference whatever. If the Union had said that "po-
litical agitation on an economic basis" is the most widely applied (and
not "applicable") method it would have been right in regard to a certain
period in the development of our Social-Democratic movement. It would
have been right in regard to the Economists and to many (if not the ma-
jority) of the practical workers of 1898-1901 who applied the method of
political agitation (to the extent that they applied it at all!) almost exclu-
occur when it is possible "right from the beginning" to carry on political agitation
"exclusively on an economic basis"; and yet Rabocheye Dyelo went so far as to
say that "there is no need for this whatever." (Two Congresses, p. 11.) In the next
chapter, we shall show that the tactics of the "politicians" and revolutionaries
not only do not ignore the trade union tasks of Social-Democracy, but that, on
the contrary, they alone can secure the consistent fulfilment of these tasks.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 191
aively on an economic basis. Political agitation on such lines was recognized
and, as we have seen, even recommended by Sabochaya Mysl and by the
"Self-Emancipation Group!" Sabocheye Dyelo should have strongly con-
demned the fact that useful economic agitation was accompanied by the
harmful restriction of the political struggle, but instead of that, it de-
clares the method most widely applied (by the Economists) to be the most
widely applicablel
What real concrete meaning doesMartynov attach to the words "lending
the economic struggle itself a political character," in presenting the tasks
of Social-Democracy? The economic struggle is the collective struggle
of the workers against their employers for better terms in the saU of
their labour power, for better conditions of life and labour. This struggle
is necessarily a struggle according to trade, because conditions of labour
differ very much in different trades, and, consequently, the fight to im-
prove these conditions can only be conducted in respect of each trade
(trade unions in the western countries, temporary trade associations and
leaflets in Russia, etc.). Lending "the economic struggle itself a politi-
cal character" means, therefore, striving to secure satisfaction for these
trade demands, the improvement of conditions of labour in each sep-
arate trade by means of "legislative and administrative measures"
(as Martynov expresses it on the next page of his article, p. 43). This is
exactly what the trade unions do and always have done. Read the works
of the thoroughly scientific (and "thoroughly" opportunist) Mr. and Mrs.
Webb and you will find that the British trade unions long ago recognized
and have long carried out, the task of "lending the economic struggle it-
self a political character"; they have long been fighting for the right to
strike, for the removal of all legal hindrances to the co-operative and trade
union movement, for laws protecting women and children, for the im-
provement of conditions of labour by means of health and factory legis-
lation, etc.
Thus, the pompous phrase "lending the economic struggle itself a
political character," which sounds so "terrifically" profound and revolu-
tionary, serves as a screen to conceal what is in fact the traditional striv-
ing to degrade Social-Democratic politics to the level of trade union
politics! On the pretext of rectifying Iskra's one-sidedness, which,
it is alleged, placed "the revolutionizing of dogma higher than the revo-
lutionizing of life,"* we are presented with the struggle for economic
reform as if it were something entirely new. As a matter of fact, the phrase
"lending the economic struggle itself a political character" means nothing
* Rabochtijc Dyclot No. 10, p. 60. This is the Martynov variation of the appli-
cation to the present chaotic state of our movement of the thesis: "Every step
of real movement is more important than a dozen programs," to which we have
already referred above. As a matter of fact, this is merely a translation into Rus-
sian of the notorious Bcrnstcinian phrase: "The movement is everything, the
ultimate aim is nothing."
132 V. I. LENIN
more than the struggle for economic reforms. And Martynov himseli
might have come to this simple conclusion had he only pondered over the
significance of his own words.
"Our Party," he says, turning his heaviest guns against Iskra,
"could and should have presented concrete demands to the govern-
ment for legislative and administrative measures against economic
cxptoitation, for the relief of unemployment, for the relief of the
famine-stricken, etc." (Rabocheye Dyeloy No. 10, pp. 42-43.)
Concrete demands for measures — does not this mean demands for
social reforms? And again we ask the impartial reader, do we slander the
Rabocheye Dyelo-ites (may I be forgiven for this clumsy expression!),
when we declare them to be concealed Bernsteinites for advancing their
thesis about the necessity of fighting for economic reforms as their point
of disagreement with Iskra?
Revolutionary Social-Democracy always included, and now includes,
the fight for reforms in its activities. But it utilizes "economic" agitation
for the purpose of presenting to the government, not only demands
for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it cease
to be an autocratic government. Moreover, it considers it to be its duty
to present this demand to the government, not on the basis of theeconom-
ic struggle alone, but on the basis of all manifestations of public and
political life. In a word, it subordinates the struggle for reforms to the
revolutionary struggle for liberty and for Socialism, as the part is subor-
dinate to the whole. Martynov, however, resuscitates the theory of stages
in a new form, and strives to prescribe an exclusively economic, so to
speak, path of development for the political struggle. By coming out at
this moment, when the revolutionary movement is on the up-grade,
with an alleged special "task" of fighting for reforms, he is dragging the
Party backwards and is playing into the hands of both "economic" and
liberal opportunism.
To proceed. Shamefacedly hiding the struggle for reforms behind the
pompous thesis "lending the economic struggle itself a political charac-
ter," Martynov advanced, as if it were a special point exclusively econom-
ic (in fact exclusively factory) reforms. Why he did that, we do not
know. Perhaps it was due to carelessness? But if, indeeH, he had something
else besides "factory" reforms in mind, then the whole of his thesis,
which we have just quoted, loses all sense. Perhaps he did it because
he thought it possible and probable that the government would make
"concessions" only in the economic sphere?* If that is what he thought,
then it is a strange error. Concessions are also possible and are made in
* P. 43. "Of course, when we advise the workers to present certain economic
demands to the government, we do so because in the economic sphere, the auto-
cratic government is compelled to agree to make certain concessions."
WHAT 19 TO BE DONE? 193
the sphere of legislation concerning flogging, passports, land compensa-
tion payments, religious sects, the censorship, etc., etc. "Economic"
concessions (or pseudo-concessions) are, of course, the cheapest and most
advantageous concessions to make from the governments' point of view,
because by these means it hopes to win the confidence of the masses of
the workers. For this very reason, we Social-Democrats must under no
circumstances create grounds for the belief (or the misunderstanding) that
we attach greater value to economic reforms, or that we regard them
as being particularly important, etc. "Such demands," writes Martynov,
concerning the concrete demands for legislative and administrative
measures referred to above, "would not be merely a hollow sound, be-
cause, promising certain palpable results, they might be actively sup-
ported by the masses of the workers. . . ." We are not Economists, oh nol
We only cringe as slavishly before the "palpablcness" of concrete re-
sults as do the Bernsteins, the Prokopoviches, the Struves, the R. M.'s,
and tutti quantil We only wish to make it understood (with Narcissus
Tuporylov)* that all that which "does not promise palpable results'*
is merely a "hollow sound." We are only trying to argue as if the masses
of the workers were incapable (and had not already proved their capabil-
ities, notwithstanding those who ascribe their own philistinism to them)
of actively supporting every protest against the autocracy even if it pro-
mises absolutely no palpable results whatever]
"In addition to its immediate revolutionary significance, the
economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the
government [ "economic struggle against the government"!!] has
also this significance: that it constantly brings the workers face to
face with their own lack of political rights." (Martynov, p. 44.)
We quote this passage not in order to repeat what has already been
said hundreds and thousands of times before, but in order to thank Marty-
nov for this excellent new formula: "the economic struggle of the workers
against the employers and the government." What a pearl! With what
inimitable talent and skill in eliminating all partial disagreements and
shades of differences among Economists does this clear and concise postu-
late express the quintessence of Economism: from calling to the workers to
join "in the political struggle which they carry on in the general interest,
for the purpose of improving the conditions of all the workers,"** con-
tinuing through the theory of stages, to the resolution of the Congress
on the "most widely applicable," etc. "Economic struggle against the
government" is precisely trade union politics, which is very, very far from
being Social-Democratic politics.
* Narcissus Tuporylov — the pseudonym used by Martov to sign a satirical
hymn directed against the Economists. — Ed.
*• Rabochaya Mysl, Special Supplement, p. 14.
*•
13-685
194 Y. I. LENIN
B. A Tale of How Martynov Rendered Pkkhanov More Profound
Martynov says:
"Much water has flowed under the bridges since Plekhanov
wrote this book/' (Ta*ks of the Socialists in the Fight Against the
Famine in Russia.) "The Social-Democrats who for a decade led
the economic struggle of the working class . . . have failed as yet
to lay down a broad theoretical basis for Party tactics. This ques-
tion has now come to the fore, and if we should wish to lay down
such a theoretical basis we would certainly have to deepen consid-
erably the principles of tactics that Plekhanov at one time devel-
oped. . . . We would now have to define the differences between
propaganda and agitation differently from the way in which Ple-
khanov defined it. [Martynov had just previously quoted the words
of Plekhanov: "A propagandist presents many ideas to one or a
few persons; an agitator presents only one or a few ideas, but he
presents them to a mass of people."] By propaganda we would un-
derstand the revolutionary elucidation of the whole of the pres-
ent system or partial manifestations of it, irrespective of whether
it is done in a form capable of being understood by individuals
or by broad masses. By agitation, in the strict sense of the word
[ate!], we would understand calling the masses to certain concrete ac-
tions that would facilitate the direct revolutionary intervention of
the proletariat in social life."
We congratulate Russian and international Social-Democracy on Marty-
nov *s new, more strict and more profound terminology. Up to now we
thought (with Plekhanov, and with all the leaders of the international
labour movement) that a propagandist, dealing with, say, the question of
unemployment, must explain the capitalistic nature of crises, the reasons
why crises are inevitable in modern society, must describe how present
society must inevitably become transformed into Socialist society, etc.
In a word, he must present "many ideas," so many indeed that they will
be understood as a whole only by a (comparatively) few persons. An
agitator, however, speaking on the same subject will take as an illustration
a fact that is most widely known and outstanding among his audience,
say, the death from starvation of the family of an unemployed worker,
the growing impoverishment, etc., and utilizing this fact, which is known
to all and sundry, will direct all his efforts to presenting a single idea to
the "masses," i.e.9 the idea of the senseless contradiction between the
increase of wealth and increase of poverty; he will strive to rowe discon-
tent and indignation among the masses against this crying injustice, and
leave a more complete explanation of this contradiction to the propagan-
dist. Consequently, the propagandist operates chiefly by means of the
printed word; the agitator operates with the living word. The qualities;
WiHAT IS TO BE DONE? 105
that are required of an agitator are not the same as the qualities that are
required of a propagandist. Kautsky and Lafargue, for example, we call
propagandists; Bebel andGuesde we call agitators. To single out a third
sphere, or third function, of practical activity, and to include in this
third function "calling the masses to certain concrete actions," is sheer
nonsense, because the "call," as a single act, either naturally and inevit-
ably supplements the theoretical tract, propagandist pamphlet and agi-
tational speech, or represents a purely executive function. Take, for exam-
ple, the struggle now being carried on by the German Social -Democrats
against the grain duties. The theoreticians write works of research on
tariff policy and "call," say, for a fight for commercial treaties and for free
trade. The propagandist does the same thing in the periodical press, and
the agitator does it in public speeches. At the present time, the "concrete
action" of the masses takes the form of signing petitions to the Reichstag
against the raising of the grain duties. The call for this action comes in-
directly from the theoreticians, the propagandists and the agitators, and,
directly, from those workers who carry the petition lists to the factories
and to private houses to get signatures. According to the "Martynov ter-
minology," Kautsky and Bebel are both propagandists, while those who
carry the petition lists around are agitators; is that not so?
The German example recalled to my mind the German word Verbal!-
hornung, which literally translated means "to Ballhorn." Johann Ball-
horn, a Leipzig publisher of the sixteenth century, published a child's
reader in which, as was the custom, he introduced a drawing of a cock;
but this drawing, instead of portraying an ordinary cock with spurs,
portrayed it without spurs and with a couple of eggs lying near it. On the
cover of this reader he printed the legend "Revised edition by Johann
Ballhorn." Since that time the Germans describe any "revision" that is
really a worsening as "Ballhorning." And watching Martynov's attempts
to render Plekhanov "more profound" involuntarily recalls Ballhorn
to one's mind. . . .
Why did Martynov "invent" this confusion? In order to illustrate
how Iskra "devotes attention only to one side of the case, just as Plekhanov
did a decade and a half ago" (p. 39). "According to Iskra, propagandist
tasks force agitational tasks into the background, at least for the present"
(p. 52). If we translate this last postulate from the language of Martynov
into ordinary human language (because humanity has not yet managed to
learn the newly invented terminology), we shall get the following: "Accord-
ing to Iskra, the tasks of political propaganda and political agitation
force into the background the task of 'presenting to the government con-
crete demands for legislative and administrative measures' that 'promise
certain palpable results'" (or demands for social reforms, that is, if we
are permitted just once again to employ the old terminology of old human-
ity, which has not yet grown to Martynov 's level). We suggest that the
reader compare this thesis with the following tirade:
13*
196 V. I. LENIN
"What astonishes us in these programs [the programs advanced
by revolutionary Social-Democrats] is the constant stress that is
laid upon the benefits of labour activity in parliament (non-exist-
ent in Russia) and the manner in which (thanks to their revolu-
tionary nihilism) the importance of workers participating in the
Government Advisory Committees on Factory Affairs (which do
exist in Russia) ... or at least the importance of workers par-
ticipating in municipal bodies is completely ignored. . . ."
The author of this tirade expresses somewhat more straightforwardly,
more clearly and frankly, the very idea which Martynov discovered
himself. This author is R. M. in the Special Supplement to Rabochaya
Mysl. (P. 15.)
C. Political Exposures and "Training in Revolutionary Activity"
In advancing against Iskra his "theory" of "raising the activity of
the masses of the workers," Martynov, as a matter of fact, displayed a
striving to diminish this activity, because he declared the very economic
struggle before which all Economists grovel to be the preferable, the
most important and "the most widely applicable" means of rousing this
activity, and the widest field for it. This error is such a characteristic
one, precisely because it is not peculiar to Martynov alone. As a matter
of fact, it is possible to "raise the activity of the masses of the workers"
only provided this activity is not restricted entirely to "political agitation
on an economic basis." And one of the fundamental conditions for the
necessary expansion of political agitation is the organization of all-
sided political exposure. In no other way can the masses be trained in
political consciousness and revolutionary activity except by means of
such exposures. Hence, to conduct such activity is one of the most im-
portant functions of international Social-Democracy as a whole, for even
the existence of political liberty does not remove the necessity for such
exposures; it merely changes the sphere against which they are directed.
For example, the German Party is strengthening its position and spread-
ing its influence, thanks particularly to the untiring energy with which
it is conducting a campaign of political exposure. Working-class conscious-
ness cannot be genuinely political consciousness unless the workers are
trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence and abuse,
no matter what class is affected. Moreover, that response must be a Social-
Democratic response, and not one from any other point of view. The con-
sciousness of the masses of the workers cannot be genuine class conscious-
ness, unless the workers learn to observe from concrete, and above all
from topical, political facts and events, every other social class and all
the manifestations of the intellectual, ethical and political life of these
classes; unless they learn to apply practically the materialist analysis
WHAT IS TO BE DOME? 197
and the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all
classes, strata and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the
attention, observation and the consciousness of the working class exclu-
sively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not Social-Democrats; be-
cause, for its self-realization the working class must not only have a the-
oretical . . . rather it would be more true to say . . . not so much a the-
oretical as a practical understanding, acquired through experience of
political life, of the relationships between all the various classes of modern
society. That is why the idea preached by our Economists, that the econom-
ic struggle is the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses
into the political movement, is so extremely harmful and extremely reac-
tionary in practice. In order to become a Social-Democrat, a workingman
must have a clear picture in his mind of the economic nature and the
social and political features of the landlord, of the priest, of the high state
official and of the peasant, of the student and of the tramp; he must
know their strong and weak sides; he must understand all the catchwords
and sophisms by which each class and each stratum camouflages its
selfish strivings and its real "nature"; he must understand what
interests certain institutions and certain laws reflect and how they reflect
them. This "clear picture" cannot be obtained from books. It can be ob-
tained only from living examples and from exposures, following hot
after their occurrence, of what goes on around us at a given moment, of
what is being discussed, in whispers perhaps, by each one in his own way,
of the meaning of such and such events, of such and such statistics, of
such and such court sentences, etc., etc., etc. These universal political
exposures are an essential and fundamental condition for training the
masses in revolutionary activity.
Why is it that the Russian workers as yet display so little revolutionary
activity in connection with the brutal way in which the police maltreat
the people, in connection with the persecution of the religious sects,
with the flogging of the peasantry, with the outrageous censorship, with
the torture of soldiers, with the persecution of the most innocent cultural
enterprises, etc.? Is it because the "economic struggle" does rot "stim-
ulate" them to this, because such political activity does not "promise
palpable results," because it produces little that is "positive"? No. To
advance this argument, we repeat, is merely to shift the blame to the
shoulders of others, to blame the masses of the workers for our own phil-
istinism (also Bernsteinism). We must blame ourselves, our remoteness
from the mass movement; we must blame ourselves for being unable
as yet to organize a sufficiently wide, striking and rapid exposure of
these despicable outrages. When we do that (and we must and can do it),
the most backward worker will understand, or mil feel that the students
and religious sects, the muzhiks and the authors are being abused and
outraged by the very same dark forces that are oppressing and crushing
him at every step of his life, and, feeling that, he himself will be filled
198 V. L LENIN
with an irresistible desire to respond to these things and then he will
organize cat-calls against the censors one day, another day he will demon-
strate outside the house of the provincial governor who has brutally
suppressed a peasant uprising, another day he will teach a lesson to the
gendarmes in surplices who are doing the work of the Holy Inquisition,
etc. As yet we have done very little, almost nothing, to hurl universal
and fresh exposures among the masses of the workers. Many of us as yet
do not appreciate the bounden duty that rests upon us, but spontaneously
follow in the wake of the "drab every-day struggle," in the narrow con-
fines of factory life. Under such circumstances to say that "Iskra displays
a tendency to belittle the significance of the forward march of the drab
every-day struggle in comparison with the propaganda of brilliant and
complete ideas" (Martynov, p. 61) — means dragging the Party backward,
defending and glorifying our unpreparedness and backwardness.
As for calling the masses to action, that will come of itself immediately
energetic political agitation, live and striking exposures are set going.
To catch some criminal red-handed and immediately to brand him pub-
licly will have far more effect than any number of "appeals"; the effect
very often will be such as will make it impossible to tell exactly who it
was that "appealed" to the crowd, and exactly who suggested this or that
plan of demonstration, etc. Calls for action, not in the general, but in the
concrete sense of the term, can be made only at the place of action; only
those who themselves go into action immediately can make appeals for
action. And our business as Social-Democratic publicists is to deepen,
to expand and intensify political exposures and political agitation.
A word in passing about "calls to action." The only paper that prior
1o the spring events called upon the workers actively to intervene in a
matter that certainly did not promise any palpable results for the workers,
i.e., the drafting of the students into the army, was Iskra. Immediately
after the publication of the order of January 11, on "drafting the 183 stu-
dents into the army," Iskra published an article about it (in its February
issue, No. 2),* and before any demonstration was started openly called
upon "the workers to go to the aid of the students," called upon the
"people" boldly to take up the government's open challenge. We ask:
how is the remarkable fact to be explained that although he talks so much
about "calls to action," and even suggests "calls to action" as a special
form of activity, Martynov said not a word about this call?
Our Economists, including Rabocheye Dyelo9 were successful because
they pandered to the uneducated workers. But the working-class Social-
Democrat, the working-class revolutionary (and the number of that type
is growing) will indignantly reject all this talk about fighting for demands
"promising palpable results," etc., because he will understand that this
is only a variation of the old song about adding a kopek to the ruble.
* See Lenin, Collected Works, Eng. cd., Vol. IV, Book I, p. 70. — Ed.
WtHAT IS TO BE BONE? 199
Such a workingman will say to his counsellors of Rabochaya My si and
Eabocheye Dyeto: you are wasting your time, gentlemen; you are inter-
fering with excessive zeal in a job that we can manage ourselves, and
you are neglecting your own duties. It is silly of you to say that the
Social-Democrats' task is to lend the economic struggle itself a political
character, for that is only the beginning, it is not the main task that
Social-Democrats must fulfil. All over the world, including Russia,
the police themselves often lend the economic struggle a political character,
and the workers themselves are beginning to understand whom the govern-
ment supports.* The "economic struggle of the workers against the
employers and the government," about which you make as much fuss
as if you had made a new discovery, is being carried on in all parts of
Russia, even the most remote, by the workers themselves who have heard
about strikes, but who have heard almost nothing about Socialism. The
"activity" you want to stimulate among us workers, by advancing con-
crete demands promising palpable results, we are already displaying and
in our every-day, petty trade union work we put forward concrete demands,
very often without any assistance whatever from the intellectuals. But
such activity is not enough for us; we are not children to be fed on the
sops of "economic" politics alone; we want to know everything that
everybody else knows, we want to learn the details of all aspects of polit-
ical life and to take part actively in every political event. In order that
we may do this, the intellectuals must talk to us less of what we already
know,** and tell us more about what we do not know and what we can
* The demand "to lend the economic struggle itself a political character"
most strikingly expresses subservience to spontaneity in the sphere of political
activity. Very often the economic struggle spontaneously assumes a political
character, that is to say, without the injection of the "revolutionary bacilli of
the intelligentsia," without the intervention of the class- conscious Social-Demo-
crats. For example, the economic struggle of the British workers assumed a polit-
ical character without the intervention of the Socialists. The tasks of the Social-
Democrats, however, are not exhausted by political agitation in the economic
field; their task is to convert trade union politics into the Social-Democratic polit-
ical struggle, to utilize the flashes of political consciousness which gleam in the
minds of the workers during their economic struggle for the purpose of raising
them to the level of Social- Democratic political consciousness. The Martynovs,
however, instead of raising and stimulating the spontaneously awakening poli-
tical consciousness of the workers, bow down before spontaneity and repeat over
and over again, until one is sick and tired of hearing it, that the economic struggle
"stimulates" in the workers' minds thoughts about their own lack of political
rights. It is unfortunate, gentlemen, that the spontaneously awakening trade
union political consciousness does not "stimulate" in your minds thoughts about
your Social -Democratic tasksl
** To prove that this imaginary speech of a worker to an Economist is based
on fact, we shall call two witnesses who undoubtedly have direct knowledge of
the labour movement, and who can be least suspected of being partial towards
\is "doctrinaires," for one witness is an Economist (who regards even Rabocheye
Dyelo as a political organ!), and the other is a terrorist. The first witness is the
author of a remarkably truthful and lively article entitled "The St. Petersburg
200 Y.LLBOV
never learn from our factory and "economic" experience, that is, you
must give us political knowledge. You intellectuals can acquire this
knowledge, and it is your duty to bring us this knowledge in a hundred
and a thousand times greater measure than you have done up to now;
and you must bring us this knowledge, not only in the form of arguments,,
pamphlets and articles which sometimes — excuse our frankness! — are
very dull, but in the form of live exposures of what our government and
our governing classes are doing at this very moment in all spheres of life.
Fulfil this duty with greater zeal, and talk less about "increasing the activ-
ity of the masses of the workers"! We are far more active than you think ^
and we are quite able to support, by open street fighting, demands that
do not promise any "palpable results" whatever! You cannot "increase"
our activity, because you yourselves are not sufficiently active. Bow in
worship to spontaneity less, and think more about increasing your own
activity, gentlemen!
D. What Is There in Common Between Economism and Terrorism!
In the last footnote we quoted the opinion of an Economist and of
a non-Social-Democratic terrorist who, by chance, proved to be in agree-
ment with him. Speaking generally, however, between the two there
is not an accidental, but a necessary, inherent connection, about which
we shall have to speak further on, but which must be dealt with here
in connection with the question of training the masses in revolutionary
activity. The Economists and the modern terrorists spring from a com-
mon root, namely, the worship of spontaneity , of which we dealt with in
the preceding chapter as a general phenomenon, and which we shall
now examine in relation to its effect upon political activity and the po-
litical struggle. At first sight, our, assertion may appear paradoxical, for
the difference between these two appears to be so enormous: one stresses
Labour Movement and the Practical Tasks of Social-Democracy," published in
Babocheye Dyelo, No. 6. He divided the workers into the following categories:
1. class-conscious revolutionaries; 2. intermediate stratum; 3. the masses. Now
the intermediate stratum he says "is often more interested in questions of political
life than in its own immediate economic interests, the connection between which
and the general social conditions it has long understood...." Rabochaya Mysl
"is sharply criticized": "it keeps on repeating the same thing over and over again,
things we have long known, read long ago." "Nothing in the political review again I"
(Pp. 30-31.) But even the third stratum, "... the younger and more sensitive section
of the workers, less corrupted by the tavern and the church, who have hardly ever
had the opportunity of reading political literature, discuss political events in
a rambling way and ponder deeply over the fragmentary news they get about
the student riots, etc." The second witness, the terrorist, writes as follows:
•*. ..^ They read over once or twice the petty details of factory life in other towns, not
their own, and then they read no more.... 'Awfully dull,* they say.... To say nothing
in a workers * paper about the government ... signifies that the workers are regarded
as being little children.... The workers are not babies." (Svoboda {Freedom] ', pub-
lished by the Revolutionary Socialist group, pp. 69-70.)
WHAT IS TO. BE DONE? 201
the "drab cvery-day struggle" and the other calls for the most self-sacri-
ficing struggle of individuals. But this is not a paradox. The Economists
and terrorists merely bow to different poles of spontaneity: the Econom-
ists bow to the spontaneity of the "pure and simple" labour move-
ment, while the terrorists bow to the spontaneity of the passionate indig-
nation of the intellectuals, who are either incapable of linking up the
revolutionary struggle with the labour movement, or lack the oppor-
tunity to do so. It is very difficult indeed for those who have lost
their belief, or who have never believed that this is possible, to find
some other outlet for their indignation and revolutionary energy than
terror. Thus, both the forms of worship of spontaneity we have mentioned
are nothing more nor less than a beginning in the carrying out of the no-
torious Credo program. Let the workers carry on their "economic struggle
against the employers and the government" (we apologize to the author
of the Credo for expressing his views inMartynov's words! But we think
we have the right to do so because even the Credo says that in the
economic struggle the workers "come up against the political regime"),
and let the intellectuals conduct the political struggle by their own efforts —
with the aid of terror, of course ! This is an absolutely logical and inev-
itable conclusion which must be insisted upon — even though those who
were beginning to carry out this program did not themselves realize that
it was inevitable. Political activity has its logic quite apart from the
consciousness of those who, with the best intentions, call either for terror
or for lending the economic struggle itself a political character. The road
to hell is paved with good intentions, and, in this case, good intentions
cannot save one from being spontaneously drawn "along the l^ne of
least resistance," along the line of the purely bourgeois Credo program.
Surely it is not an accident that many Russian liberals — avowed liber-
als and liberals who wear the mask of Marxism — wholeheartedly sym-
pathize with terror and strive to foster the spirit of terrorism that is
running so high at the present time.
The formation of the Svoboda Revolutionary Socialist group — which
was formed with the object of giving all possible assistance to the labour
movement, but which included in its program terror, and emancipation,
so to speak, from Social-Democracy — this fact once again confirmed the
remarkable penetration of P.B. Axelrod who literally foretold these re-
sults of Social-Democratic wavering as far back as the end of 1897 (Modern
Tasks and Modern Tactics), when he outlined his remarkable "two pros-
pects." All the subsequent disputes and disagreements among Russian
Social-Democrats are contained, like a plant in the seed, in these two
prospects.*
* Martynov "conceives of another, more realistic [?] dilemma" (Social- Democ-
racy and the Working Class, p. 19): "Either Social-Democracy undertakes the
direct leadership of the economic struggle of the proletariat and by that [1] trans-
forms it into a revolutionary class struggle ..." "by that," i.e., apparently the
202 y. L LENIN
From this point of view it will be clear that Rabocheye Dyelo, being
unable to withstand the spontaneity of Economism, has been unable
also to withstand the spontaneity of terrorism. It would be interesting
to note here the specific arguments that Svoboda advanced in defence of
terrorism. It "completely denies" the deterrent role of terrorism (The
Regeneration of Revolutionism, p. 64), but instead stresses its "excitative
significance." This is characteristic, first, as representing one of the
stages of the* break-up and decay of the traditional (pre-Social-Democrat-
ic) cycle of ideas which insisted upon terrorism. To admit that the
government cannot now be "terrified," and therefore disrupted, by terror,
is tantamount to condemning terror as a system of struggle, as a sphere
of activity sanctioned by the program. Secondly, it is still more charac-
teristic as an example of the failure to understand our immediate task
of "training the masses in revolutionary activity." Svoboda advocates
terror as a means of "exciting" the labour movement, and of giving it
a "strong impetus." It is difficult to imagine an argument that disproves
itself more than this one does ! Are there not enough outrages com-
mitted in Russian life that a special "stimulant" has to be invented?
On the other hand, is it not obvious that those who are not, and cannot be,
roused to excitement even by Russian tyranny will stand by "twiddling
their thumbs" even while a handful of terrorists are engaged in single
combat with the government? The fact is, however, that the masses of
the workers are roused to a high pitch of excitement by the outrages
committed in Russian life, but we are unable to collect, if one may put
it that way, and concentrate all these drops and streamlets of popular
excitement, which are called forth by the conditions of Russian life to
a far larger extent than we imagine, but which it is precisely necessary
to combine into a single gigantic flood. That this can be accomplished
is irrefutably proved by the enormous growth of the labour movement
and the greed with which the workers devour political literature, to which
we have already referred above. Calls for terror and calls to give the eco-
nomic struggle itself a political "charactei1 aie llitiely two dmcrcnt forms
bi evading the most pressing duty that now rests upon Russian revolution-
aries, namely, to organize all-sided political agitation. Svoboda desires
to substitute terror for agitation, openly admitting that "as soon as inten-
sified and strenuous agitation is commenced among the masses its excita-
dircct leadership of the economic struggle. Can Martynov quote an example where
the leadership of the industrial struggle alone has succeeded in transforming the
trade union movement into a revolutionary class movement? Cannot he understand
that in order to bring about this "transformation" we must actively undertake
the "direct leadership" of all-sided political agitation? M... Or the other prospect:
Social-Democracy refrains from taking the leadership of the economic struggle
of the workers and so ...clips its own wings...." In Rabocheye Dyelo'a opinion,
which we quoted above, Iskra "refrains." We have seen, however, that the latter
does far more to lead the economic struggle than Rabocheye Dyelo, but it docs
not confine itself to this, and does not curtail its political tasks for the sake of it.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 203
tive function will be finished." (The Regeneration of Revolutionism, p. 68.)
This proves precisely that both the terrorists and the Economists under-
estimate the revolutionary activity of the masses, in spite of the strik-
ing evidence of the events that took place in the spring, * and whereas
one goes out in search of artificial "stimulants," the other talks about
"concrete demands." But both fail to devote sufficient attention to the
development of their own activity in political agitation and organization
of political exposures. And no other work can serve as a substitute for
this work either at the present time or at any other time.
E. The Working Class as Champion of Democracy
We have seen that the carrying on of wide political agitation, and
consequently the organization of all-sided political exposures, is an abso-
lutely necessary and paramount task of activity, that is, if that activity
is to be truly Social-Democratic. We arrived at this conclusion solely
on the grounds of the pressing needs of the working class for political
knowledge and political training. But this presentation of the question
is too narrow, for it ignores the general democratic tasks of Social-De-
mocracy in general, and of modern Russian Social-Democracy in partic-
ular. In order to explain the situation more concretely we shall ap-
proach the subject from an aspect that is "nearer" to the Economist, name-
ly, from the practical aspect. "Everyone agrees" that it is necessary to
develop the political consciousness of the working class. But the question
arises, how is that to be done? What must be done to bring this about?
The economic struggle merely brings the workers "up against" questions
concerning the attitude of the government towards the working class.
Consequently, however much we may try to lend the "economic struggle
itself a political character" we shall never be able to develop the political
consciousness of the workers (to the degree of Social-Democratic conscious-
ness) by confining ourselves to the economic struggle, for the limits of
this task are too narrow. The Martynov formula has some value for us,
not because it illustrates Martynov 's ability to confuse things, but be-
cause it strikingly expresses the fundamental error that all the Econom-
ists commit, namely, their conviction that it is possible to develop
the class political consciousness of the workers from within the econom-
ic struggle, so to speak, i.e., making the economic struggle the exclu-
sive, or, at least, the main starting point, making the economic struggle
the exclusive, or, at least, the main basis. Such a view is radically wrong.
Piqued by our opposition to them, the Economists refuse to ponder deeply
over the origins of these disagreements, with the result that we absolutely
fail to understand each other. It is as if we spoke in different tongues.
* This refers to the big street demonstrations which commenced In the spring
•f 1901. [Author's note to the 190# edition. — Ed.]
204 V. L LENIN
Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from
without, that is, only outside of the economic struggle, outside of the sphere
of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone
it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships be-
tween all the various classes and strata and the state and the government —
the sphere of the interrelations between all the various classes. For that
reason, the reply to the question: what must be done in order to bring
political knowledge to the workers? cannot be merely the one which, in
the majority of cases, the practical workers, especially those who are
inclined towards Economism, usually content themselves with, i.e., "go
among the workers." To bring political knowledge to the workers the
Social-Democrats must go among all classes of the population, must dis-
patch units of their army in all directions.
We deliberately select this awkward formula, we deliberately express
ourselves in a simple, forcible way, not because we desire to indulge
in paradoxes, but in order to "stimulate" the Economists to take up
those tasks which they unpardonably ignore, to make them understand
the difference between trade union and Social-Democratic politics, which
they refuse to understand. Therefore, we beg the reader not to get excited,
but to listen patiently to the end.
Take the type of Social-Democratic circle that has been most wide-
spread during the past few years, and examine its work. It has "contacts
with the workers," it issues leaflets — in which abuses in the factories,
the government's partiality towards the capitalists and the tyranny
of the police are strongly condemned — and it rests content with this.
At meetings of workers the discussions never, or rarely, go beyond the
limits of these subjects. Lectures and discussions on the history of the
revolutionary movement, on questions of the home and foreign policy
of our government, on questions of the economic evolution of Russia
and of Europe, and the position of the various classes in modern society,
etc., are extremely rare. Of systematically acquiring and extending
contact with other classes of society, no one even dreams. The ideal
leader, as the majority of the members of such circles picture him, is
something more in the nature of a trade union secretary than a Socialist
political leader. Any trade union secretary, an English one for instance,
helps the workers to conduct the economic struggle, helps to expose fac-
tory abuses, explains the injustice of the laws and of measures which
hamper the freedom to strike and the freedom to picket (i.e., to warn
all and sundry that a strike is proceeding at a certain factory), explains
the partiality of arbitration court judges who belong to the bourgeois
classes, etc., etc. In a word, every trade union secretary conducts and
helps to conduct "the economic struggle against the employers and the
government." It cannot be too strongly insisted that this is not enough
to constitute Social-Democracy. The Social-Democrat's ideal should
not be a trade union secretary, but a tribune of the people, able to react
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 205
to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it
takes place, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects;
he must be able to group all these manifestations into a single picture
of police violence and capitalist exploitation; he must be able to take
advantage of every petty event in order to explain his Socialistic con-
victions and his democratic demands to all, in order to explain to all
and everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle for the eman-
cipation of the proletariat. Compare, for example, a leader like Robert
Knight (the celebrated secretary and leader of the Boiler-Makers' So-
ciety, one of the most powerful trade unions in England) with Wilhelm
Liebknecht, and then take the contrasts that Martynov draws in his
controversy with Iskra. You will see — I am running through Martynov ?s
article — that Robert Knight engaged more in "calling the masses to
certain concrete actions" (p. 39) while Liebknecht engaged more in "the
revolutionary explanation of the whole of modern society, or various
manifestations of it" (pp. 38-39); that Robert Knight "formulated the
immediate demands of the proletariat and pointed to the manner in which
they can be achieved" (p. 41), whereas Wilhelm Liebknecht, while doing
this, "simultaneously guided the activities of various opposition strata,"
"dictated to them a positive program of action"* (p. 41); that it was
precisely Robert Knight who strove "as far as possible to lend the eco-
nomic struggle itself a political character" (p. 42) and was excellently
able "to submit to the government concrete demands promising certain
palpable results" (p. 43), while Liebknecht engaged more in "one-sided"
"exposures" (p. 40); that Robert Knight attached more significance to
the "forward march of the drab, every-day struggle" (p. 61), whil» Lieb-
knecht attached more significance to the "propaganda of brilliant and
finished ideas" (p. 61); that Liebknecht converted the paper he was direct-
ing into "an organ of revolutionary opposition exposing the present
system and particularly the political conditions which came into con-
flict with the interests of the most varied strata of the population" (p. 63),
whereas Robert Knight "worked for the cause of labour in close organic
contact with the proletarian struggle" (p. 63) — if by "close and organic
contact" is meant the worship of spontaneity which we studied above
from the example of Krichevsky and Martynov — and "restricted the
sphere of his influence," convinced, of course, as is Martynov, that "by
that he intensified that influence" (p. 63). In a word, you will see that
de facto Martynov reduces Social-Democracy to the level of trade union-
ism, and he does this, of course, not because he does not desire the good
of Social-Democracy, but simply because he is a little too much in a
hurry to make Plekhanov more profound, instead of taking the trouble
to understand him.
* For example, during the Franco- Prussian War, Liebknecht dictated a pro-
gram of action for the whole of democracy — and this was done to an even greater
extent by Marx and Engels in 1848.
206 V. I. LENIN
Let us return, however, to the elucidation of our thesis. We said that
a Social-Democrat, if he really believes it is necessary to develop the
all-sided political consciousness of the proletariat, must "go among all
classes of the people." This gives rise to the questions: How is this to be
done? Have we enough forces to do this? Is there a base for such work
among all the other classes? Will this not mean a retreat, or lead to a re-
treat, from, the class point of view? We shall deal with these questions.
We must "go among all classes of the people" as theoreticians, as
propagandists, as agitators and as organizers. No one doubts that the theo-
retical work of Social-Democrats should be directed towards studying
all the features of the social and political position of the various classes.
But extremely little is done in this direction as compared with the work
that is done in studying the features of factory life. In the committees
and circles, you will meet men who are immersed, say, in the study of
some special branch of the metal industry, but you will hardly ever find
members of organizations (obliged, as often happens, for some reason
or other to give up practical work) especially engaged in the collection
of material concerning some pressing question of social and political
life in our country which could serve as a means for conducting Social-
Democratic work among other strata of the population. In speaking of
the lack of training of the majority of present-day leaders of the labour
movement, we cannot refrain from mentioning the point about training
in this connection also, for it too is bound up with the "economic" con-
ception of "close organic contact with the proletarian struggle." The
principal thing, of course, is propaganda and agitation among all strata
of the people. The West European Social-Democrats find their work in
this field facilitated by the calling of public meetings, to which all are
free to go, and by the parliament, in which they speak to the represent-
atives of all classes. We have neither a parliament nor the freedom to
call meetings, nevertheless we are able to arrange meetings of workers
who desire to listen to a Social- Democrat. We must also find ways and
means of calling meetings of representatives of all classes of the popu-
lation that desire to listen to a democrat; for he who forgets that "the
Communists support every revolutionary movement," that we are obliged
for that reason to expound and emphasize general democratic tasks be-
fore the whole people, without for a moment concealing our Socialist
convictions, is not a Social-Democrat. He who forgets his obligation
to be in advance of everybody in bringing up, sharpening and solving every
general democratic problem is not a Social-Democrat.
"But everybody agrees with this!" — the impatient reader will ex-
claim— and the new instructions given, by the last Congress of the Union
to the editorial board of Babocheye Dyelo say: "All events of social and
political life that affect the proletariat either directly as a special class
or as the vanguard of all the revolutionary forces in the struggle for freedom
should serve as subjects for political propaganda and agitation." (Two
WHAT 19 TO BE DONE? 207
Congresses, p. 17, our italics.) Yes, these arc very true and very good words
and we would be satisfied if Rdbocheye Dyelo understood them and if
it refrained from saying in the next breath things that are the very opposite
of them.
Ponder over the following piece of Martynov reasoning. On page 40
he says that Iskra's tactics of exposing abuses are one-sided, that "how-
ever much we may spread distrust and hatred towards the government,,
we shall not achieve our aim until we have succeeded in developing
sufficiently active social energy for its overthrow."
This, it may be said in parenthesis, is the concern, with which we are
already familiar, for increasing the activity of the masses, while at the
same time striving to restrict one's own activity. This is not the point
we are now discussing, however. Martynov, therefore, speaks of revo-
hitionary energy ("for overthrowing"). But what conclusion does he ar-
rive at? As in ordinary times various social strata inevitably march sep-
arately^
"it is, therefore, clear that we Social-Democrats cannot simulta-
neously guide the activities of various opposition strata, we cannot
dictate to them a positive program of action, we cannot point out
to them in what manner they can fight for their daily interests. . . .
The liberal strata will themselves take care of the active struggle
for their immediate interests and this struggle will bring them up
against our political regime." (P. 41.)
Thus, having commenced by speaking of revolutionary energy, of the
active struggle for the overthrow of the autocracy, Martynov immediate-
ly turned towards trade union energy and active struggle for immediate
interests! It goes without saying that we cannot guide the struggle of
the students, liberals, etc., for their "immediate interests," but this is
not the point we are arguing about, most worthy Economist! The point
we are discussing is the possible and necessary participation of various
social strata in the overthrow of the autocracy; not only are we able, but
it is our duty, to guide these "activities of the various opposition strata"
if we desire to be the "vanguard." Not only will the students and our
liberals, etc., themselves take care of "the struggle that will bring them
up against our political regime"; the police and the officials of the auto-
cratic government will see to this more than anyone else. But if "we"
desire to be advanced democrats, we must make it our business to stimu-
late in the minds of those who are dissatisfied only with university, or
only with Zemstvo, etc., conditions the idea that the whole political
system is worthless. We must take upon ourselves the task of organizing
a universal political struggle under the leadership of our Party in such
a manner as to obtain all the support possible of all opposition strata for
the struggle and for our Party. We must train our Social-Democratic
practical workers to become political leaders, able to guide all the mani-
208 V. I. LENIN
fcstations of this universal struggle, able at the right time to "dictate
a positive program of action" for the turbulent students, for the discon-
tented Zemstvo Councillors, for the incensed religious sects, for the offend-
ed elementary school teachers, etc., etc. For that reason, Martynov's
assertion — that "with regard to these, we can come forward merely in
the negative role of exposers of abuses ... we can only [our italics] dissi-
pate the hopes they have in various government commissions" — is 06-
solutely wrong. By saying this Martynov shows that he absolutely jails
to understand the role the revolutionary "vanguard" must really play.
If the reader bears this in mind, the real sense of the following concluding
remarks by Martynov will be clear to him:
"Iskra is in fact the organ of revolutionary opposition that ex-
poses the state of affairs in our country, particularly the political
state of affairs in so far as they affect the interests of the most diverse
classes of the population. We, however, work and shall continue to
work for the cause of labour in close organic contact with the pro-
letarian struggle. By restricting the sphere of our influence, we
intensify that influence." (P. 63.)
The true sense of this conclusion is as follows: Iskra desires to elevate
working-class trade union politics (to which, owing to misunderstanding,
lack of training, or by conviction, our practical workers frequently con-
fine themselves) to Social-Democratic politics, whereas Rabocheye Dyelo
desires to degrade Social-Democratic politics to trade union politics.
And while doing this, they assure the world that these two positions are
"quite compatible in the common cause" (p. 63). 01 Sancta simplicitas!
To proceed: Have we sufficient forces to be able to direct our propagan-
da and agitation among all classes of the population? Of course we have.
Our Economists are frequently 'inclined to deny this. They lose sight of
the gigantic progress our movement has made from (approximately)
1894 to 1901. Like real "khvostists" they frequently live in the distant
past, in the period of the beginning of the movement. At that time, in-
deed, we had astonishingly few forces, and it was perfectly natural and
legitimate then to resolve to go exclusively among the workers, and se-
verely condemn any deviation from this. The whole task then was to con-
solidate our position in the working class. At the present time, however,
gigantic forces have been attracted to the movement; the best represent-
atives of the young generation of the educated classes are coming over
to us; all over the country there are people compelled to live in the pro-
vinces, who have taken part in the movement in the past and desire to
do so now, who are gravitating towards Social-Democracy (in 1894 you
could count the Social-Democrats on your fingers). One of the principal
political and organizational shortcomings of our movement is that we
are unable to utilize all these forces and give them appropriate work
(we shall deal with this in detail in the next chapter.) The overwhelming
WHAT 18 TO BE DONE? 209
majority of these forces entirely lack the opportunity of "going among
the workers," so there are no grounds for fearing that we shall
deflect forces from our main cause. And in order to be able to provide
the workers with real, universal and live political knowledge, we must
have "our own men," Social-Democrats, everywhere, among all social
strata, and in all positions from which we can learn the inner springs
of our state mechanism. Such men are required for propaganda and agitation,
but in a still larger measure for organization.
Is there scope for activity among all classes of the population? Those
who fail to see this also lag behind the spontaneous awakening of the mass-
es as far as class consciousness is concerned. The labour movement has
aroused and is continuing to arouse discontent in some, hopes for support
for the opposition in others, and the consciousness of the intolerableness
and inevitable downfall of the autocracy in still others. We would be
"politicians" and Social-Democrats only in name (as very often happens),
if we faMed to realize that our task is to utilize every manifestation of
discontent, and to collect and utilize every grain of even rudimentary
protest. This is quite apart from the fact that many millions of the peas-
antry, handicraftsmen, petty artisans, etc., always listen eagerly to the
preachings of any Social-Democrat who is at all intelligent. Is there a
single class of the population in which no individuals, groups or circles
are to be found who are discontented with the lack of rights and tyranny
and, therefore, accessible to the propaganda of Social-Democrats as the
spokesmen of the most pressing general democratic needs? To those who
desire to have a clear idea of what the political agitation of a Social-Dem-
ocrat among all classes and strata of the population should be like, we
would point to political exposures in the broad sense of the word as the
principal (but of course not the sole) form of this agitation.
We must "arouse in every section of the population that is at all
enlightened a passion for political exposure," I wrote in my article
"Where To Begin?" (Iskra, No. 4, May 1901), with which I shall
deal in greater detail later. "We must not allow ourselves to
be discouraged by the fact that the voice of political exposure
is still feeble, rare and timid. This is not because of a gener-
al submission to police tyranny, but because those who are
able and ready to make exposures have no tribune from which
to speak, because there is no audience to listen eagerly to and
approve of what the orators say, and because the latter do not
see anywhere among the people forces to whom it would be worth
while directing their complaint against the 'omnipotent* Rus-
sian government. . . . We are now in a position, and it is our
duty, to set up a tribune for the national exposure of the tsarist
government. That tribune must be a Social-Democratic paper."*
* See Lenin, Selected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. II, p. 20. — Ed.
14-685
210 V. I. LENIN
The ideal audience for these political exposures is the working class,
which is first and foremost in need of universal and live political knowl-
edge, which is most capable of converting this knowledge into active
struggle, even if it does not promise "palpable results." The only plat-
form from which public exposures can be made is an all- Russian newspa-
per. "Without a political organ, a political movement deserving that
name is inconceivable in modern Europe." In this connection Russia
must undoubtedly be included in modern Europe. The press has long
ago become a power in our country, otherwise the government would
not spend tens of thousands of rubles to bribe it, and to subsidize the
Katkovs and Meshcherskys. And it is no novelty in autocratic Russia
for the underground press to break through the wall of censorship and
compel the legal and conservative press to speak openly of it. This was
the case in the 'seventies and even in the 'fifties. How much broader
and deeper are now the strata of the people willing to read the illegal
underground press, and to learn from it "how to live and how to die," to use
the expression of the worker who sent a letter to Iskra. (No. 7.) Political ex-
posures are as much a declaration of war against the government as economic
exposures are a declaration of war against the factory owners. And the wid-
er and more powerful this campaign of exposure is, the more numerous
and determined the social class, which has declared war in order to com-
mence the war, will be, the greater will be the moral significance of this dec-
laration of war. Hence, political exposures in themselves serve as a pow-
erful instrument for disintegrating the system we oppose, the means
for diverting from the enemy his casual or temporary allies, the means
for spreading enmity and distrust among those who permanently share
power with the autocracy.
Only a party that will organize real, public exposures can become the
vanguard of the revolutionary forces in our time. The word "public"
has a very profound meaning. The overwhelming majority of the non-
working-class exposers (and in order to become the vanguard, we must
attract other classes) are sober politicians and cool businessmen. They
know perfectly well how dangerous it is to "complain" even against a
minor official, let alone against the "omnipotent" Russian government.
And they will come to us with their complaints only when they see that
these complaints really have effect, and when they see that we represent
a political force. In order to become this political force in the eyes of out-
siders, much persistent and stubborn work is required to raise our own
consciousness, initiative and energy. For this, it is not sufficient to stick
the label "vanguard" on rearguard theory and practice.
But if we have to undertake the. organization of the real, public ex-
posure of the government, in what way will the class character of our
movement be expressed? — the over-zealous advocates of "close organic
contact with the proletarian struggle" will ask us. The reply is: in that
we Social-Democrats will organize these public exposures; in that all the
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 211
questions that arc brought up by the agitation will be explained consis-
tently in the spirit of Social-Democracy, without any concessions to de-
liberate or unconscious distortions of Marxism; in the fact that the Party
will carry on this universal political agitation, uniting into one insepa-
rable whole the pressure upon the government in the name of the whole
people, the revolutionary training of the proletariat — while preserving
its political independence — the guidance of the economic struggle of the
working class, the utilization of all its spontaneous conflicts with its
exploiters, which rouse and bring into our camp increasing numbers of
the proletariat.
But one of the most characteristic features of Economism is its failure
to understand this connection. More than that — it fails to understand the
identity of the most pressing needs of the proletariat (an all-sided poli-
tical education through the medium of political agitation and political
exposures) with the needs of the general democratic movement. This lack
of understanding is not only expressed in "Martynovite" phrases, but
also in the reference to the class point of view which is identical in meaning
with these phrases. The following, for example, is how the authors of the
"Economist" letter in No. 12 of Iskra expressed themselves.*
"This fundamental drawback [overestimating ideology] is the
cause of Iskra's inconsistency in regard to the question of the rela-
tions between Social-Democrats and various social classes and ten-
dencies. By a process of theoretical reasoning [and not by "the growth
of Party tasks which grow with the Party"], Iskra arrived at the con-
clusion that it was necessary immediately to take up the struggle
against absolutism, but in all probability sensing the difficulty of
this task for the workers in the present state of affairs [not only
sensing, but knowing perfectly well that this problem would seem
less difficult to the workers than to those "Economist" intellectuals
who are concerned about little children, for the workers are pre-
pared to fight even for demands which, to use the language of the
never-to-be-forgotten Martynov, do not "promise palpable results"]
and lacking the patience to wait until the working class has accumu-
lated forces for this struggle, Iskra begins to seek for allies in the
ranks of the liberals and intelligentsia."
Yes, yes, we have indeed lost all "patience" to "wait" for the blessed
time that has long been promised us by the "conciliators," when the Eco-
nomists will stop throwing the blame for their on*n backwardness upon the
* Lack of space has prevented us from replying in full, in Iskra, to this letter,
which is extremely characteristic of the Economists. We were very glad this
letter appeared, for the charges brought against Iskra, that it did not maintain
a consistent, class point of view, have reached us long ago from various sources,
and we have been waiting for an appropriate opportunity, or for a formulated
expression of this fashionable charge, to reply to it. And it is our habit to reply
to attacks not by defence, but by counter-attacks.
14*
212 V. I. LENIN
workers, and stop justifying their own lack of energy by the alleged lack
offerees among the workers. We ask our Economists: what does "the work-
ing class accumulating forces for this struggle" mean? Is it not evident
that it means the political training of the workers, revealing to them all
the aspects of our despicable autocracy? And is it not clear that precisely
for this work we need "allies in the ranks of the liberals and intelligentsia,*'
who are prepared to join us in the exposure of the political attack on the
Zemstvo, on the teachers, on the statisticians, on the students, etc.? Is
this "cunning mechanism" so difficult to understand after all? Has not
P. B. Axelrod repeated to you over and over again since 1897: "The prob-
lem of the Russian Social-Democrats acquiring direct and indirect allies
among the non-proletarian classes will be solved principally by the charac-
ter of the propagandist activities conducted among the proletariat itself?"
And Martynov and the other Economists continue to imagine that the work-
ers must first accumulate forces (for trade union politics) "in the economic
struggle against the employers and the government," and then "go over"
(we suppose from trade union "training for activity") to Social-Democrat-
ic activity.
". . . In its quest," continue the Economists, "Iskra not infre-
quently departs from the class point of view, obscures class antago-
nisms and puts into the forefront the general character of the pre-
vailing discontent with the government, notwithstanding the fact
that the causes and the degree of this discontent vary very consid-
erably among the 'allies,' Such, for example, is Iskra's attitude
towards the Zemstvo. ..."
Iskra, it is alleged, "promises the nobility, who are discontented with
the government's doles, the aid of the working class, but does not say a
word about the class differences among these strata of the people." If the
reader will turn to the series of articles "The Autocracy and the Zemstvo"
(Nos. 2 and 4 of Iskra), to which, in all probability, the authors of the let-
ter refer, he will find that these articles* deal with the attitude of the gov-
ernment towards the "mild agitation of the feudal-bureaucratic Zemstvo, "
and towards the "independent activity of even the propertied classes."
In these articles it is stated that the workers cannot look on indifferently
while the government is carrying on a fight against the Zemstvo, and the
supporte sof the Zemstvo are called upon to give up making pretty speech-
es, and to speak firmly and resolutely when revolutionary Social-Democracy
confronts the government in all its strength. What there is in this that the
authors of the letter do not agree with is not clear. Do they think that the
workers will "not understand" the phrases "propertied classes" and "feudal-
bureaucratic Zemstvo"? Do they think that stimulating the Zemstvo
* And among these articles there was one (lekra, No. 3) especially dealing
with the class antagonisms in the countryside. [See "The Workers' Party and the
Peasantry," Lenin, Selected Works, Eng. ed.f Vol. II, p. 234. — Ed.]
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 218
to abandon pretty speeches and to speak firmly and resolutely is "overesti-
mating ideology"? Do they imagine that the workers can "accumulate
forces" for the fight against absolutism if they know nothing about the
attitude of absolutism towards the Zemstvo? All this remains unknown.
One thing alone is clear and that is that the authors of the letter have a
very vague idea of what the political tasks of Social-Democracy are. This
is revealed still more clearly by their remark: "Such also [i.e., also
"obscures class antagonisms"] is Iskra's attitude towards the student move-
ment." Instead of calling upon the workers to declare by means of
public demonstrations that the real centre of unbridled violence and out-
rage is not the students but the Russian government (Iskra, No. 2),* we
should, no doubt, have inserted arguments in the spirit of Rabochaya
Mysl! And such ideas were expressed by Social-Democrats in the autumn
of 1901, after the events of February and March, on the eve of a fresh re-
vival of the student movement, which revealed that even in this sphere
the "spontaneous" protest against the autocracy is outstripping the con-
scious Social-Democratic leadership of the movement. The spontaneous
striving of the workers to defend the students who were beaten up by
the police and the Cossacks is outstripping the conscious activity of the
Social-Democratic organizations.
"And yet in other articles," continue the authors of the letter, "Iskra
condemns all compromises, and defends, for example, the intolerant con-
duct of the Guesdites." We would advise those who usually so conceited-
ly and frivolously declare in connection with the disagreements existing
among the contemporary Social-Democrats that the disagreements are
unimportant and would not justify a split, to ponder very deeply ovej; these
words. Is it possible for those who say that we have done astonishingly
little to explain the hostility of the autocracy towards the various classes,
and to inform the workers of the opposition of the various strata of the pop-
ulation towards the autocracy, to work successfully in the same organ-
ization with those who say that such work is a "compromise" — evi-
dently a compromise with the theory of the "economic struggle against
the employers and the government?"
We urged the necessity of introducing the class struggle in the rural
districts on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the emancipation
of the peasantry (No. 3)** and spoke of the irreconcilability between the
local government bodies and the autocracy in connection with Witte's
secret memorandum. (No. 4.) We attacked the feudal landlords and the
government which served the latter on the occasion of the passing of the
new law (No. 8),*** and welcomed the illegal Zemstvo congress that was
held. We urged the Zemstvo to stop making degrading petitions (No. 8),
and to come out and fight. We encouraged the students, who had begun
* See Lenin, Collected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. IV, Book I, p. 70. — Ed.
** Ibid., p. 101.— Ed.
p. 176.— tfd.
214 V. I. LENIN
to understand the need for the political struggle and to take up that Strug,
gle (No. 3) and, at the same time, we lashed out at the "barbarous lack
of understanding*' revealed by the adherents of the "purely student"
movement, who called upon the students to abstain from taking part
in the street demonstrations (No. 3, in connection with the manifesto is-
sued by the Executive Committee of the Moscow students on February 25).
We exposdd the "senseless dreams" and the "lying hypocrisy" of the cun-
ning liberals of Rossiya (Russia, No. 5) and at the same time we commented
on the fury with which "peaceful writers, aged professors, scientists
and well-known liberal Zemstvo-ites were handled in the government's
mental dungeons." (No. 5, "A Police Raid on Literature.") We exposed
the real significance of the program of "state concern for the welfare of the
workers," and welcomed the "valuable admission" that "it is better by
granting reforms from above to forestall the demand for such reforms from
below, than to wait for those demands to be put forward." (No. 6.)*
We encouraged the protests of the statisticians (No. 7), and censured the
strike-breaking statisticians. (No 9.) He who sees in these tactics the ob-
scuring of the class consciousness of the proletariat and compromise with
liberalism shows that he absolutely fails to understand the true significance
of the program of the Credo and is carrying out that program de facto , how-
ever much he may deny this {Because by that he drags Social-Democracy
towards the "economic struggle against the employers and the government"
but yields to liberalism, abandons the task of actively intervening in
every "liberal" question and of defining his own Social-Democratic atti-
tude towards such questions.
F. Again "Slanderers," Again "Mystifiers"
These polite expressions were uttered by Raboclieye Dyelo which
in this way answers our charge that it "indirectly prepared the
ground for converting the labour movement into an instrument of
bourgeois democracy." In its simplicity of heart Rabocheye Dyelo
decided that this accusation was nothing more than a polemical sally, as
if to say, these malicious doctrinaires can only think of saying unpleasant
things about us; now what can be more unpleasant than being an instru-
ment of bourgeois democracy? And so they print in heavy type a "refuta-
tion": "nothing but downright slander" (Two Congresses, p. 30), "mystifica-
tion" (p. 31), "masquerade" (p. 33). Like Jupiter, Rabocheye Dyelo (al-
though it has little resemblance to Jupiter) is angry because it is wrong, and
proves by its hasty abuse that it is incapable of understanding its oppo-
nents ' mode of reasoning. And yet, with only a little reflection it would
have understood why all worship of the spontaneity of the mass movement
and any degrading of Social-Democratic politics to trade union politics
* Ibid., p. 164.— Ed.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 215
mean precisely preparing the ground for converting the labour movement
into an instrument of bourgeois democracy. The spontaneous labour move-
ment by itself is able to create (and inevitably will create) only trade union-
ism, and working-class trade union politics are precisely working-class
bourgeois politics. The fact that the working class participates in the po-
litical struggle and even in political revolution does not in itself make its
politics Social-Democratic politics.
JRabocheye Dyelo imagines that bourgeois democracy in Russia is merely
a "phantom" * (T wo Congresses, p. 32). Happy people! Like the ostrich, they
bury their heads in the sand, and imagine that everything around has disap-
peared. A number of liberal publicists who month after month proclaimed
to the world their triumph over the collapse and even disappearance of Marx-
ism; a number of liberal newspapers (S. Peterburgskiye Vyedomosti [St.
Petersburg News], Russkiye Vyedomosti and many others) which encouraged
the liberals who bring to the workers the Brentano conception of the class
struggle and the trade union conception of politics; the galaxy of critics
of Marxism, whose real tendencies were so very well disclosed by the Credo
and whose literary products alone circulate freely in Russia, the animation
among revolutionary non-Social-Democratic tendencies, particularly after
the February and March events — all these, of course, are mere phantoms!
All these, of course, have nothing at all to do with bourgeois democracy!
Rabocheye Dyelo and the authors of the Economist letter published in
Iskra, No. 12, should "ponder over the reason why the events in the spring
excited such animation among the revolutionary non- Social-Democratic
tendencies instead of increasing the authority and the prestige of Social-De-
mocracy." The reason was that we failed to cope with our tasks. The masses
of the workers proved to be more active than we; we lacked adequatelyx
trained revolutionary leaders and organizers aware of the mood prevailing
among all the opposition strata and able to march at the head of the move-
ment, convert the spontaneous demonstrations into a political demonstra-
tion, broaden its political character, etc. Under such circumstances, our
backwardness will inevitably be utilized by the more mobile and more
energetic non-Social-Democratic revolutionaries, and the workers, no mat-
ter how strenuously and self-sacrificingly they may fight the police and the
troops, no matter how revolutionary they may act, will prove to be merely
a force supporting these revolutionaries, the rearguard of bourgeois democra-
cy, and not the Social-Democratic vanguard. Take, for example, the Ger-
* Then follows a reference to the "concrete Russian conditions which fatal-
istically impel the labour movement onto the revolutionary path." But these
people refuse to understand that the revolutionary path of the labour movement
might not be a Social-Democratic path! When absolutism reigned in Western
Europe, the entire West European bourgeoisie "impelled," and deliberately
impelled, the workers onto the path of revolution. We Social-Democrats, however,
cannot be satisfied with that. And if we, by any means whatever, degrade
Social-Democratic politics to the level of spontaneous trade union politics, we,
by that, play into the hands of bourgeois democracy.
216 V. I. LENIN
man Social-Democrats, whose weak sides alone our Economists desire to
emulate. Why is it that not a single political event takes place in Germany
without adding to the authority and prestige of Social-Democracy? Because
Social-Democracy is always found to be in advance of all others in its rev-
olutionary estimation of every event and in its championship of every pro-
test against tyranny. It does not soothe itself by arguments about the econ-
omic struggle bringing the workers up against their own lack of rights, and
about concrete conditions fatalistically impelling the labour movement on-
to the path of revolution. It intervenes in every sphere and in every question
of social and political life: in the matter of Wilhelm's refusal to endorse a
bourgeois progressive as city mayor (our Economists have not yet managed
to convince the Germans that this in fact is a compromise with liberalism!);
in the question of the law against the publication of "immoral" publica-
tions and pictures; in the question of the government influencing the election
of professors, etc., etc. Everywhere Social-Democracy is found to be ahead
of all others, rousing political discontent among all classes, rousing the
sluggards, pushing on the laggards and providing a wealth of material for
the development of the political consciousness and political activity of the
proletariat. The result of all this is that even the avowed enemies of So-
cialism are filled with respect for this advanced political fighter, and some-
times an important document from bourgeois and even from bureaucratic
and Court circles makes its way by some miraculous means into the edito-
rial office of V or warts.
IV.
THE PRIMITIVENESS OF THE ECONOMISTS AND THE
ORGANIZATION OF REVOLUTIONARIES
Rabocheye Dyelo's assertions — which we have analysed — that the
economic struggle is the most widely applicable means of political agita-
tion and that our task now is to lend the economic struggle itself a political
character, etc., not only express a narrow view of our political tasks, but
&ho of OUT organizational tasks. The "economic struggle against the employ-
ers and the government" does not in the least require — and therefore such a
struggle can never give rise to — an all- Russian centralized organization
that will combine, in a general attack, all the numerous manifestations of
political opposition, protest and indignation, an organization that will con-
sist of professional revolutionaries and be led by the real political leaders
of the whole of the people. And this can be easily understood. The character
of the organization of every institution is naturally and inevitably deter-
mined by the character of the activity that institution conducts. Conse-
quently, Rabocheye Dyelo, by the above- analysed assertions, not only sanc-
tifies and legitimatizes the narrowness of political activity, but also the
narrowness of organizational work. And in this case also, as always, it is an
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 217
organ whose consciousness yields to spontaneity. And yet the worship of
spontaneously rising forms of organization, the lack of appreciation of
the narrowness and primitiveness of our organizational work, of the degree
to which we still work by "kiistar* methods" in this most important sphere,
the lack of such appreciation, I say, is a very serious complaint from which
our movement suffers. It is not a complaint that comes with decline, of
course, it is a complaint that comes with growth. But it is precisely at the
present time, when the wave of spontaneous indignation is, as it were, wash-
ing over us, leaders and organizers of the movement, that a most irrec-
oncilable struggle must be waged against all defence of sluggishness,
against any legitimization of restriction in this matter, and it is particularly
necessary to rouse in all those participating in the practical work, in all who
are just thinking of taking it up, discontent with the primitive methods
that prevail among us and an unshakable determination to get rid of them.
A. What Are Primitive Methods'?
We shall try to answer this question by giving a brief description of the
activity of a typical Social-Democratic circle of the period of 1894-1901.
We have already referred to the widespread interest in Marxism by the stu-
dent youth in that period. Of course, these students were not only, or even
not so much, absorbed in Marxism as a theory, but as an answer to the ques-
tion: "what is to be done?"; as a call to march against the enemy. And these
new warriors marched to battle with astonishingly primitive equipment and
training. In a vast number of cases, they had almost no equipment and abso-
lutely no training. They marched to war like peasants from the plough,
snatching up a club. A students' circle having no contacts with the old
members of the movement, no contacts with circles in other districts, or
even in other parts of the same city (or with other schools), without the
various sections of the revolutionary work being in any way organized, hav-
ing no systematic plan of activity covering any length of time, establishes
contacts with the workers and sets to work. The circle gradually expands its
propaganda and agitation; by its activities it wins the sympathies of a
rather large circle of workers and of a certain section of the educated classes,
which provides it with money and from which the "committee" recruits
new groups of young people. The charm which the committee (or the
League of Struggle) exercises on the youth increases, its sphere of activity
becomes wider and its activities expand quite spontaneously: the very peo-
ple who a year or a few months previously had spoken at the gatherings of
the students1 circle and discussed the question, "whither?" who established
and maintained contacts with the workers, wrote and published leaflets,
now establish contacts with other groups of revolutionaries, procure litera-
ture, set to work to establish a local newspaper, begin to talk about organiz-
* Kustars — handicraftsmen employing primitive methods in their work. — Ed.
218 V. I. LENIN
ing demonstrations, and finally, commence open hostilities (these open
hostilities may, according to circumstances, take the form of the publica-
tion of the very first agitational leaflet, or the first newspaper, or of the
organization of the first demonstration). And usually the first action ends
in immediate and wholesale arrests. Immediate and wholesale, precisely
because these open hostilities were not the result of a systematic and care-
fully thougjit-out and gradually prepared plan for a prolonged and stubborn
struggle, but simply the result of the spontaneous growth of traditional
circle work; because, naturally, the police, in almost every case, knew the
principal leaders of the local movement, for they had already "recommend-
ed" themselves to the police in their school-days, and the latter only wait-
ed for a convenient moment to make their raid. They gave the circle suf-
ficient time to develop its work so that they might obtain a palpable
corpus delicti ,* and always allowed several of the persons known to them
to remain at liberty in order to act as "decoys" (which, I believe, is the
technical term used both by our people and by the gendarmes). One cannot
help comparing this kind of warfare with that conducted by a mob of peas-
ants armed with clubs against modern troops. One can only express astonish-
ment at the virility displayed by the movement which expanded, grew and
won victories in spite of the total lack of training among the fighters. It is
true that from the historical point of view, the primitiveness of equipment
was not only inevitable at first, but even legitimate as one of the conditions
for the wide recruiting of fighters, but as soon as serious operations com-
menced (and they commenced in fact with the strikes in the summer of 1896),
the defects in our fighting organizations made themselves felt to an increas-
ing degree. Thrown into confusion at first and committing a number of
mistakes (for example, its appeal to the public describing the misdeeds of
the Socialists, or the deportation of the workers from the capital to the pro-
vincial industrial centres), the government very soon adapted itself to the
new conditions of the struggle and managed to place its perfectly equipped
detachments of agents provocateurs, spies and gendarmes in the required
places. Raids became so frequent, affected such a vast number of peo-
ple and cleared out the local circles so thoroughly that the masses of the
workers literally lost all their leaders, the movement assumed an incredibly
sporadic character, and it became utterly impossible to establish continuity
and coherence in the work. The fact that the local active workers were hope-
lessly scattered, the casual manner in which the membership of the circles
was recruited, the lack of training in and narrow outlook on theoretical,
political and organizational questions were all the inevitable result of the
conditions described above. Things reached such a pass that in several places
the workers, because of our lack of stamina and ability to maintain secrecy,
began to lose faith in the intelligentsia and to avoid them; the intellectuals,
they said, are much too careless and lay themselves open to police raids!
Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of the movement knows that
* Offence within the meaning of the law. — Ed.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 219
these primitive methods at last began to be recognized as a disease by all
thinking Social-Democrats. And in order that the reader who is not acquaint-
ed with the movement may have no grounds for thinking that we are
"inventing" a special stage or special disease of the movement, we shall refer
once again to the witness we have already quoted. No doubt we shall be
excused for the length of the passage quoted:
"While the gradual transition to wider practical activity, "writes
B — v in Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 6, "a transition which is closely
connected with the general transitional period through which the
Russian labour movement is now passing, is a characteristic fea-
ture . . . there is, however, another and not less interesting feature
in the general mechanism of the Russian workers' revolution. We
refer to the general lack of revolutionary forces fit for action* which is
felt not only in St. Petersburg, but throughout the whole of Russia.
With the general revival of the labour movement, with the general
development of the working masses, with the growing frequency of
strikes, and with the mass labour struggle becoming more and more
open, which intensifies government persecution, arrests, deportation
and exile, this lack of highly skilled revolutionary forces is becoming
more and more marked and, without a doubt, must affect the depth and
the general character of the movement. Many strikes take place without
the revolutionary organizations exercising any strong and direct
influence upon them. ... A shortage of agitational leaflets and ille-
gal literature is felt. . . . The workers' circles are left without agita-
tors. . . . Simultaneously, there is a constant shortage of funds. In a
word, the growth of the labour movement is outstripping the growth and
development of the revolutionary organizations. The numerical strength
of the active revolutionaries is too small to enable them to con-
centrate in their own hands all the influence exercised upon the whole
mass of labour now in a state of unrest, or to give this unrest even
a shadow of symmetry and organization. . . . Separate circles, indi-
vidual revolutionaries, scattered, uncombined, do not represent a
united, strong and disciplined organization with the planned devel-
opment of its parts. ..." —
Admitting that the immediate organization of fresh circles to take the
place of those that have been broken up "merely proves the virility of the
movement . . . but does not prove the existence of an adequate number
of sufficiently fit revolutionary workers," the author concludes:
"The lack of practical training among the St. Petersburg revolu-
tionaries is seen in the results of their work. The recent trials, espe-
cially that of the "Self- Emancipation Group" and the "Labour versus
Capital Group," clearly showed that the young agitator, unacquaint-
* A.11 italics ours.
220 V. I. LENDS
ed with the details of the conditions of labour and, consequently,
unacquainted with the conditions under which agitation must be
carried on in a given factory, ignorant of the principles of conspiracy,
and understanding only the general principles of Social-Democracy
[and it is questionable whether he understands them] is able to carry
on his work for perhaps four, five or six months. Then come arrests,
which frequently lead to the break-up of the whole organization, or
at all events, of part of it. The question arises, therefore, can the group
conduct successful and fruitful activity if its existence is measured
by months? Obviously, the defects of the existing organizations can-
not be wholly ascribed to the transitional period. . . . Obviously, the
numerical and above all the qualitative strength of the organizations
operating is not of little importance, and the first task our Social-
Democrats must undertake ... is effectively to combine the organiza-
tions and make a strict selection of their membership."
B. Primitive Methods and Economism
We must now deal with the question that has undoubtedly arisen in the
mind of every reader. Have these primitive methods, which are a complaint
of growth affecting the whole of the movement, any connection with Econ-
omism, which is only one of the tendencies in Russian Social-Democracy?
We think that they have. The lack of practical training, the lack of ability
to carry on organizational work is certainly common to us all, including
those who have stood unswervingly by the point of view of revolutionary
Marxism from the very outset. And, of course, no one can blame the prac-
tical workers for their lack of practical training. But the term "primitive
methods" embraces something more than mere lack of training: it means the
restrictedness of revolutionary work generally, the failure to understand
that a good organization of revolutionaries cannot be built up on the basis
of such restricted work, and lastly — and most important — it means the
attempts to justify this restrictedness and to elevate it to a special "theory"
i.e., bowing in worship to spontaneity in this matter also. As soon as
such attempts were observed, it became certain that primitive methods are
connected with Economism and that we shall never eliminate this restrict-
edness of our organizational activity until we eliminate Economism gen-
erally (i.e., the narrow conception of Marxian theory, of the role of Social-
Democracy and of its political tasks). And these attempts were revealed in a
twofold direction. Some began to say: the labour masses themselves have
not yet brought forward the broad and militant political tasks that the revo-
lutionaries desire to "impose" upon them; they must continue for the time
being to fight for immediate political demands, to conduct "the economic
struggle against the employers and the government" * (and, naturally, cor-
* Rabochaya Mysl and Rdbocheye Dyelo, especially the Reply to Plekhanov.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 221
responding to this struggle which is "easily understood" by the mass
movement there must be an organization that will be "easily understood'*
by the most untrained youth). Others, far removed from "gradualness,"
began to say: it is possible and necessary to "bring about a political
revolution," but this is no reason whatever for building a strong organiza-
tion of revolutionaries to train the proletariat in the steadfast and stub-
born struggle. All we need do is to snatch up our old friend, the "handy"
wooden club. Speaking without metaphor it means — we must organize a
general strike,* or we must stimulate the "spiritless" progress of the
labour movement by means of "excitative terror."** Both these
tendencies, the opportunist and the "revolutionary," bow to the prevail-
ing primitiveness; neither believes that it can be eliminated, neither
understands our primary and most imperative practical task, namely, to
establish an organization of revolutionaries capable of maintaining the
energy, the stability and continuity of the political struggle.
We have just quoted the words of B — v: "The growth of the labour move-
ment is outstripping the growth and development of the revolutionary
organizations." This "valuable remark of a close observer" (Eabocheye
Dyelo's comment on B — v's article) has a twofold value for us. It proves
that we were right in our opinion that the principal cause of the present
crisis in Russian Social-Democracy is that the leaders ("ideologists," revo-
lutionaries, Social-Democrats) lag behind the spontaneous upsurge of the
masses. It shows that all the arguments advanced by the authors of the
Economist letter in Iskray No. 12, by B. Krichevsky and by Martynov,
about the dangers of belittling the significance of the spontaneous elements,
about the drab every-day struggle, about the tactics-as-a-process, etc., are
nothing more than a glorification and defence of primitive methods. These
people who cannot pronounce the word "theoretician" without a contemp-
tuous grimace, who describe their genuflections to common lack of train-
ing and ignorance as "sensitiveness to life," reveal in practice a failure to
understand our most imperative practical task.To laggards they shout: Keep
in step! Don't run aheadl To people suffering from a lack of energy and ini-
tiative in organizational work, from lack of "plans" for wide and bold or-
ganizational work, they shout about the "tactics-as-a-process "I The most
serious sin we commit is that we degrade our political and organizational
tasks to the level of the immediate, "palpable," "concrete" interests of the
every-day economic struggle; and yet they keep singing to us the old song:
lend the economic struggle itself a political character. We say again: this
kind of thing displays as much "sensitiveness to life" as was displayed by
the hero in the popular fable who shouted to a passing funeral procession:
many happy returns of the dayl
* Sec "Who Will Bring About the Political Revolution" in the symposium
published in Russia, entitled The Proletarian Struggle. Re-issued by the Kiev
Committee.
** Regeneration of Revolutionism and Svoboda.
222 y. I. LENIN
Recall the matchless, truly "Narcissus"-like superciliousness with
which these wiseacres lectured Plekhanov about the "workers * circles gen-
erally" (ate!) being "incapable of fulfilling political tasks in the real and
practical sense of the word, i.e., in the sense of the expedient and successful
practical struggle for political demands." (Rabocheye Dyelo's Reply, p. 24.)
There are circles and circles, gentlemen! Circles of "kustars," of course, are
not capable of fulfilling political tasks and never will be, until they realize
the primitlveness of their methods and abandon it. If, besides this, these
amateurs are enamoured of their primitive methods, and insist on writing
the word "practical" in italics, and imagine that being practical demands
that one's tasks be degraded to the level of understanding of the most back-
ward strata of the masses, then they are hopeless, of course, and certainly
cannot fulfil any political tasks. But a circle of heroes like Alexeyev and
Myshkin, Khalturin and Zhelyabov* is capable of performing political
tasks in the genuine and most practical sense of the term, and it is capable
of performing them because and to the extent that their passionate preach-
ing meets with response among the spontaneously awakening masses, and
their seething energy is answered and supported by the energy of the revo-
lutionary class. Plekhanov was a thousand times right not only when he
pointed to this revolutionary class, not only when he proved that its spon-
taneous awakening was inevitable, but also when he set the "workers' cir-
cles" a great and lofty political task. But you refer to the mass movement
that has sprung up since that time in order to degrade this task, in order to
curtail the energy and scope of activity of the "workers ' circles." If you are
not amateurs enamoured of your primitive methods, what are you then?
You boast that you are practical, but you fail to see what every Russian
practical worker knows, namely, the miracles that the energy, not only of
circles, but even of individual persons is able to perform in the revolution-
ary cause. Or do you think that our movements cannot produce heroes like
those that were produced by the movement in the 'seventies? If so, why do
you think so? Because we lack training? But we are training ourselves, will
go on training ourselves, and acquire the training I Unfortunately it is true
that scum has formed on the surface of the stagnant waters of the "economic
struggle against the employers and the government"; there are people among
us who kneel in prayer to spontaneity, gazing with awe upon the "pos-
teriors" of the Russian proletariat (as Plekhanov expresses it). But we will
rid ourselves of this scum. The time has come when Russian revolution-
aries, led by a genuinely revolutionary theory, relying upon the genuinely
revolutionary and spontaneously awakening class, can at last — at last! —
rise to their full height and exert their giant strength to the utmost. All
that is required in order that this may be so is that the masses of our prac-
tical workers, and the still large4" masses of those who dream of doing prac-
tical work even while still at school, shall meet with scorn and ridicule
* Famous revolutionaries of the 'seventies. — Ed.
WHAT 13 TO BE DONE? 223
any suggestion that may be made to degrade our political tasks and to re-
strict the scope of our organizational work. And we shall achieve that, don 't
you worry, gentlemenl
But if the reader wishes to see the pearls of "Economist" passion for
primitive methods, he must, of course, turn from the eclectic and vacillat-
ing Rabocheye Dyelo to the consistent and determined Rabochaya My si.
In its Special Supplement, p. 13, R. M. wrote:
"Now two words about the so-called revolutionary intelligentsia
proper. It is true that on more than one occasion it proved that it
was quite prepared to 'enter into determined battle with tsarisml'
The unfortunate thing, however, is that, ruthlessly persecuted by the
political police, our revolutionary intelligentsia imagined that the
struggle with this political police was the political struggle with the
autocracy. That is why, to this day, it cannot understand 'where the
forces for the fight against the autocracy are to be obtained.'"
What matchless and magnificent contempt for the struggle with the
police this worshipper (in the worst sense of the word) of the spontaneous
movement displays, does he not? He is prepared to justify our inability to
organize secretly by the argument that with the spontaneous growth of the
mass movement, it is not at all important for us to fight against the politi-
cal police!! Not many would agree to subscribe to this monstrous conclu-
sion; our defects in revolutionary organization have become too urgent a
matter to permit them to do that. And if Martynov, for example, would
refuse to subscribe to it, it would only be because he is unable, or lacks the
courage, to think out his ideas to their logical conclusion. Indeed, does the
"task" of prompting the masses to put forward concrete demands promising
palpable results call for special efforts to create a stable, centralized, mili-
tant organization of revolutionaries? Cannot such a "task" be carried out
even by masses who do not "struggle with the political police"? Moreover,
can this task be fulfilled unless, in addition to the few leaders, it is under-
taken by the workers (the overwhelming majority), who in fact are inca-
pable of "fighting against the political police"? Such workers, average
people of the masses, are capable of displaying enormous energy and self-
sacrifice in strikes and in street battles with the police and troops, and
are capable (in fact, are alone capable) of determining the whole outcome of
our movement — but the struggle against the political police requires special
qualities; it requires professional revolutionaries. And we must not only
see to it that the masses "advance" concrete demands, but also that the
masses of the workers "advance" an increasing number of such professional
revolutionaries from their own ranks. Thus we have reached the question
of the relation between an organization of professional revolutionaries and
the pure and simple labour movement. Although this question has found
little reflection in literature, it has greatly engaged us "politicians" in con-
versations and controversies with those comrades who gravitate more or less
224 V. I. LENIN
towards Economism. It is a question that deserves special treatment. But
before taking it up we shall deal with one other quotation in order to il-
lustrate the position we hold in regard to the connection between primi-
tiveness and Economism.
In his Reply, N. N. wrote: "The 'Emancipation of Labour Group* de-
mands direct struggle against the government without first considering
where the material forces for this struggle are to be obtained, and without
indicating 'the path of the struggle.'" Emphasizing the last words, the
author adds the following footnote to the word "path": "This cannot be ex-
plained by the conspiratorial aims pursued, because the program does not re-
fer to secret plotting but to a mass movement. The masses cannot proceed by
secret paths. Can we conceive of a secret strike? Can we conceive of secret
demonstrations and petitions?" (Vademecum, p. 59.) Thus, the author ap-
proaches quite closely to the question of the "material forces" (organizers of
strikes and demonstrations) and to the "paths" of the struggle, but, never-
theless, is still in a state of consternation, because he "worships" the mass
movement, i.e., he regards it as something that relieves us of the necessity
of carrying on revolutionary activity and not as something that should em-
bolden us and stimulate our revolutionary activity. Secret strikes are im-
possible— for those who take a direct and immediate part in them, but a
strike may remain (and in the majority of cases does remain) a "secret"
to the masses of the Russian workers, because the government takes care to
cut all communication between strikers, takes care to prevent all news of
strikes from spreading. Now here indeed is a special "struggle with the
political police" required, a struggle that can never be conducted by such
large masses as usually take part in strikes. Such a struggle must be organ-
ized, according to "all the rules of the art," by people who are professionally
engaged in revolutionary activity. The fact that the masses are spontane-
ously entering the movement does not make the organization of this strug-
gle less necessary. On the contrary, it makes it more necessary; for we Social-
ists would be failing in our duty to the masses if we did not prevent the
police from making a secret of (and if we did not ourselves sometimes se-
cretly prepare) every strike and every demonstration. And we shall succeed
in doing this, precisely because the spontaneously awakening masses will
also advance from their own ranks increasing numbers of "professional
revolutionaries" (that is, if we are not so foolish as to advise the workers
to keep on marking time.)
C. Organization of Workers and Organization of Revolutionaries
It is only natural that a Social-Democrat, who conceives the political
struggle as being identical with the "economic struggle against the employ-
ers and the government," should conceive of an "organization of revolu-
tionaries" as being more or less identical with an "organization of workers."
And this, in fact, is what actually happens; so that when we talk about
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 226
organization, we literally talk in different tongues. I recall a conversation
I once had with a fairly consistent Economist, with whom I had not been
previously acquainted. We were discussing the pamphlet Who Will Make
the Political Revolution? and we were very soon agreed that the principal
defect in that brochure was that it ignored the question of organization. We
were beginning to think that we were in complete agreement with each
other — but as the conversation proceeded, it became clear that we were
talking of different things. My interlocutor accused the author of the bro-
chure just mentioned of ignoring strike funds, mutual aid societies, etc.;
whereas I had in mind an organization of revolutionaries as an essential
factor in "making" the political revolution. After that became clear, I hard-
ly remember a single question of importance upon which I was in agree-
ment with that Economist 1
What was the source of our disagreement? The fact that on questions of
organization and politics the Economists are forever lapsing from Social-
Democracy into trade unionism. The political struggle carried on by the
Social-Democrats is far more extensive and complex than the economic
struggle the workers carry on against the employers and the government.
Similarly (and indeed for that reason), the organization of a revolutionary
Social-Democratic Party must inevitably differ from the organizations of
the workers designed for the latter struggle. A workers' organization must
in the first place be a trade organization; secondly, it must be as wide as pos-
sible; and thirdly, it must be as public as conditions will allow (here, and
further on, of course, I have only autocratic Russia in mind). On the other
hand, the organizations of revolutionaries must consist first and foremost
of people whose profession is that of a revolutionary (that is why I speak of
organizations of revolutionaries, meaning revolutionary Social-Democrats).
In view of this common feature of the members of such an organization,
all distinctions as between workers and intellectuals, and certainly distinctions
of trade and profession, must be obliterated. Such an organization must
of necessity be not too extensive and as secret as possible. Let us examine
this threefold distinction.
In countries where political liberty exists the distinction between a
trade union and a political organization is clear, as is the distinction be-
tween trade unions and Social-Democracy. The relation of the latter to the
former will naturally vary in each country according to historical, legal
and other conditions — it may be more or less close or more or less
complex (in our opinion it should be as close and simple as possible); but
trade union organizations are certainly not in the least identical with the
Social-Democratic Party organizations in free countries. In Russia, how-
ever, the yoke of autocracy appears at first glance to obliterate all distinc-
tions between a Social-Democratic organization and trade unions, because
all workers' associations and all circles are prohibited, and because the
principal manifestation and weapon of the workers' economic struggle —
the strike — is regarded as a criminal offence (and sometimes even as a polit-
15-685
226 V. I. LENIN
ical offence!). Conditions in our country, therefore, strongly "impel" the
workers who are conducting the economic struggle to concern themselves
with political questions. They also "impel" the Social-Democrats to con-
fuse trade unionism with Social-Democracy (and our Krichevskys, Marty-
novs and their like, while speaking enthusiastically of the first kind of "im-
pelling," fail to observe the "impelling" of the second kind). Indeed, picture
to yourselves the people who are immersed ninety-nine per cent in "the
economic struggle against the employers and the government." Some of
them have never, during the whole course of their activity (four to six
months), thought of the need for a more complex organization of revolution-
aries, others, perhaps, come across the fairly widely distributed Bernstein-
ian literature, from which they become convinced of the profound impor-
tance of the forward march of "the drab every-day struggle." Still others
are carried away, perhaps, by the seductive idea of showing the world a
new example of "close and organic contact with the proletarian struggle" —
contact between the trade union and Social-Democratic movements. Such
people would perhaps argue that the later a country enters into the arena of
capitalism and, consequently, of the labour movement, the more the
Socialists in that country may take part in, and support, the trade union
movement, and the less reason is there for non- Social-Democratic trade
unions. So far, the argument is absolutely correct; unfortunately, however,
some go beyond that and hint at the complete fusion of Social-Democracy
with trade unionism. We shall soon see, from the example of the rules of
the St. Petersburg League of Struggle, what a harmful effect these dreams
have upon our plans of organization.
The workers' organizations for the economic struggle should be trade
union organizations. Every Social-Democratic worker should as far as
possible assist and actively work inside these organizations. That is true.
But it is not to our interest to derrfand that only Social-Democrats should be
eligible for membership in the trade unions, for this would only restrict our
influence over the masses. Let every worker who understands the need to
unite for the struggle against the employers and the government join the
trade unions. The very aim of the trade unions would be unattainable unless
they were very wide organizations. And the wider these organizations are,
the wider our influence over them will be — an influence due not only to the
"spontaneous " development of the economic struggle but also to the direct
and conscious effort of the Socialist trade union members to influence their
comrades. But a wide organization cannot apply the methods of strict se-
crecy (since the latter demands far greater training than is required for the
economic struggle). How is the contradiction between the need for a large
membership and the need for strictly secret methods to be reconciled? How
are we to make the trade unions as public as possible? Generally speaking,
there are perhaps only two ways to this end: either the trade unions become
legalized (which in some countries precedes the legalization of the Socialist
and political unions), or the organization is kept a secret one, but so "free"
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? *<
and amorphous, lose as the Germans say, that the need for secret methods
becomes almost negligible as far as the bulk of the members is concerned.
The legalization of the non-Socialist and non-political labour unions in
Russia has already begun, and there is no doubt that every advance our
rapidly growing Social-Democratic working-class movement makes will
increase and encourage the attempts at legalization. These attempts pro-
ceed for the most part from supporters of the existing order, but they will
proceed also from the workers themselves and from the liberal intellectu-
als. The banner of legality has already been unfurled by the Vassilyevs and
the Zubatovs. Support has been promised by theOzerovs and the Wormses,
and followers of the new tendency are to be found among the workers. Hence-
forth, we must reckon with this tendency. How are we to reckon with it?
There can be no two opinions about this among Social-Democrats. We
must constantly expose any part played in this movement by the Zuba-
tovs and the Vassilyevs, the gendarmes and the priests, and explain to
the workers what their real intentions are. We must also expose the concil-
iatory, "harmonious" undertones that will be heard in the speeches deliv-
ered by liberal politicians at the legal meetings of the workers, irrespec-
tive of whether they proceed from an earnest conviction of the desirability
of peaceful class collaboration, whether they proceed from a desire to curry
favour with the employers, or are simply the result of clumsiness. We must
also warn the workers against the traps often set by the police, who at such
open meetings and permitted societies spy out the "hotheads" and who,
through the medium of the legal organizations, endeavour to plant their
agents provocateurs in the illegal organizations.
But while doing all this, we must not forget that in the long run the
legalization of the working-class movement will be to our advantage, and
not to that of the Zubatovs. On the contrary, our campaign of exposure
will help to separate the tares from the wheat. What the tares are, we
have already indicated. By the wheat, we mean attracting the attention
of still larger and more backward sections of the workers to social and
political questions, and freeing ourselves, the revolutionaries, from func-
tions which are essentially legal (the distribution of legal books, mutual
aid, etc.), the development of which will inevitably provide us with an
increasing quantity of material for agitation. In this sense, we may say,
and we should say, to the Zubatovs and the Ozerovs: keep at it, gentle-
men, do your best! Wrhen you place a trap in the path of the workers
(either by way of direct provocation, or by the "honest" corruption of
the workers with the aid of "Struve-ism"), we shall see to it that you are
exposed. But whenever you take a real step forward, even if it is the most
timid zigzag, we shall say: please continue! And the only step that can
be a real step forward is a real, if small, extension of the workers' field
of action. Every such extension will be to our advantage and will help
to hasten the advent of legal societies, not of the kind in which agents
provocateurs hunt for Socialists, but of the kind in which Socialists will
15*
228 V. I. LENIN
hunt for adherents. In a word, our task is to fight down the tares. It is
not our business to grow wheat in flower pots. By pulling up the tares,
we clear the soil for the wheat. And while the old-fashioned folk are tend-
ing their flower-pot crops, we must prepare reapers, not only to cut down
the tares of today, but also to reap the wheat of to-morrow.
Legalization, therefore, will not solve the problem of creating a trade
union organization that will be as public and as extensive as possible
(but we would be extremely glad if the Zubatovs and the Ozerovs provid-
ed even a partial opportunity for such a solution — to which end we must
fight them as strenuously as possible!). There only remains the path of
secret trade union organization; and we must offer all possible assistance
to the workers, who (as we definitely know) are already adopting this path.
Trade union organizations may not only be of tremendous value in de-
veloping and consolidating the economic struggle, but may also become
a very important auxiliary to political agitation and revolutionary organ-
ization. In order to achieve this purpose, and in order to guide the nas-
cent trade union movement in the direction the Social-Democrats desire,
we must first fully understand the foolishness of the plan of organization
with which the St. Petersburg Economists have been occupying them-
selves for nearly five years. That plan is described in the "Rules for a
Workers' Benefit Fund" of July 1897 (Listok Rabotnika. No. 9-10, p. 46,
in Bdbochaya Mysl. No. 1), and also in the "Rules for a Trade Union
Workers' Organization," of October 1900. (Special leaflet printed in
St. Petersburg and quo ted in Iskra, No. 1.) The fundamental error contained
in both these sets of rules is that they give a detailed formulation of a
wide workers' organization and confuse the latter with the organization
of revolutionaries. Let us take the last-mentioned set of rules, since it
is drawn up in greater detail. The body of it consists of fifty-two paragraphs.
Twenty-three paragraphs deal with structure, the method of conducting
business and the competence of the "workers' circles," which are to be
organized in every factory ("not more than ten persons") and which elect
"central (factory) groups." "The central group," says paragraph 2, "observes
all that goes on in its factory or workshop and keeps a record of events. "
"The central group presents to subscribers a monthly report on the state
of the funds" (par. 17), etc. Ten paragraphs are devoted to the "district
organization," and nineteen to the highly complex interconnection be-
tween the "Committee of the Workers ' Organization" and the *6Committee
of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle" (delegates from each district
and from the "executive groups" — "groups of propagandists, groups for
maintaining contact with the provinces and with the organization abroad,
and for managing stores, publications and funds").
Social-Democracy = "executive groups" in relation to the economic
struggle of the workers 1 It would be difficult to find a more striking illus-
tration than this of how the Economists' ideas deviate from Social-
Democracy to trade unionism, and how foreign to them is the idea that
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 229
a Social-Democrat must concern himself first and foremost with an organ-
ization of revolutionaries, capable of guiding the whole proletarian strug-
gle for emancipation. To talk of "the political emancipation of the
working class" and the struggle against "tsarist despotism," and at the same
time to draft rules like these, indicates a complete failure to understand
what the real political tasks of Social-Democracy are. Not one of the
fifty or so paragraphs reveals the slightest glimmer of understanding
that it is necessary to conduct the widest possible political agitation
among the masses, an agitation that deals with every phase of Russian
absolutism and with every aspect of the various social classes in Russia.
Rules like these are of no use even for the achievement of trade union
aims, let alone political aims, for that requires organization according
to trade, and yet the rules do not contain a single reference to this.
But most characteristic of all, perhaps, is the amazing top-heaviness
of the whole "system," which attempts to bind every factory with the
"committee" by a permanent string of uniform and ludicrously petty
rules and a three-stage system of election. Hemmed in by the narrow
outlook of Economism, the mind is lost in details which positively reek
of red tape and bureaucracy. In practice, of course, three-fourths of the
clauses are never applied; on the other hand, however, a "conspiratorial"
organization of this kind, with its central group in each factory, makes
it very easy for the gendarmes to carry out raids on a large scale. Our
Polish comrades have already passed through a similar phase in their
own movement, when everybody was extremely enthusiastic about the
extensive organization of workers' funds; but they very quickly abandoned
these ideas when they became convinced that such organizations only
provided rich harvests for the gendarmes. If we are out for wide workers*
organizations, and not for wide arrests, if it is not our purpose to provide
satisfaction to the gendarmes, these organizations must remain abso-
lutely loose. But will they be able to function? Well, let us see what the
functions are: "... to observe all that goes on in the factory and keep
a record of events." (Par. 2 of the Rules.) Do we need a special group for
this? Could not the purpose be better served by correspondence conduct-
ed in the illegal papers and without setting up special groups? ". . . to
lead the struggles of the workers for the improvement of their workshop
conditions." (Par. 3 of the Rules.) This, too, requires no special group.
Any agitator with any intelligence at all can gather what demands the
workers want to advance in the course of ordinary conversation and trans-
mit them to a narrow — not a wide — organization of revolutionaries to
be embodied in a leaflet. ". . . to organize a fund ... to which subscrip-
tions of two kopeks per ruble* should be made" (par. 9) ... to present
monthly reports to subscribers on the state of the funds (par. 17) ... to
expel members who fail to pay their subscriptions (par. 10), and so forth.
* Of wages earned. — Ed.
230 V. I. LENIN
Why, this is a very paradise for the police; for nothing would be easier
than for them to penetrate into the ponderous secrecy of a "central fac-
tory fund," confiscate the money and arrest the best members. Would it
not be simpler to issue one-kopek or two-kopek coupons bearing the offi-
cial stamp of a well-known (very exclusive and very secret) organiza-
tion, or to make collections without coupons of any kind and to print
reports in a certain agreed code in the illegal paper? The object would
thereby be attained, but it would be a hundred times more difficult for
the gendarmes to pick up clues.
I could go on analysing the rules, but I think that what has been said
will suffice. A small, compact core, consisting of reliable, experienced
and hardened workers, with responsible agents in the principal districts
and connected by all the rules of strict secrecy with the organizations
of revolutionaries, can, with the wide support of the masses and without
an elaborate organization, perform all the functions of a trade union
organization, and perform them, moreover, in the manner Social-Demo-
crats desire. Only in this way can we secure the consolidation and devel-
opment of a Social- Democratic trade union movement, in spite of the
gendarmes.
It may be objected that an organization which is so loose that it is
not even definitely formed, and which even has no enrolled and regis-
tered members, cannot be called an organization at all. That may very
well be. I am not out for names. But this "organization without members"
can do everything that is required, and will, from the very outset, guar-
antee the closest contact between our future trade unions and Socialism.
Only an incorrigible Utopian would want a wide organization of work-
"ers, with elections, reports, universal suffrage, etc., under the autocracy.
The moral to be drawn from this is a simple one. If we begin with
the solid foundation of a strong organization of revolutionaries, we can
guarantee the stability of the movement as a whole and carry out the aims
of both Social-Democracy and of trade unionism. If, however, we begin
with a wide workers' organization, supposed to be most "accessible" to
the masses, when as a matter of fact it will be most accessible to the
gendarmes and will make the revolutionaries most accessible to the police,
we shall achieve the aims neither of Social-Democracy nor of trade union-
ism; we shall not escape from our primitiveness, and because we con-
stantly remain scattered and broken up, we shall make only the trade
unions of the Zubatov and Ozerov type most accessible to the masses.
What, properly speaking, should be the functions of the organization
of revolutionaries? We shall deal with this in detail. But first let us exam-
ine a very typical argument advanced by the terrorist, who (sad fate!)
in this matter also is a next-door neighbour to the Economist. Svoboda
j(No. 1), a journal published for workers, contains an article entitled
"Organization," the author of which tries to defend his friends, the
Economist workers of Ivanovo-Voznesensk. He writes:
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 231
"It is a bad thing when the crowd is mute and unenlightened,
and when the movement does not proceed from the rank and file.
For instance, the students of a university town leave for their
homes during the summer and other vacations and immediately
the workers' movement comes to a standstill. Can a workers' move-
ment which has to be pushed on from outside be a real force?
Of course not!. . . It has not yet learned to walk, it is still in leading
strings. So it is everywhere. The students go off, and everything
comes to a standstill. As soon as the cream is skimmed — the milk
turns sour. If the 'committee' is arrested, everything comes to a
standstill until a new one can be formed. And one never knows what
sort of committee will be set up next — it may be nothing like the
former one. The first preached one thing, the second may preach
the very opposite. The continuity between yesterday and to-morrow
is broken, the experience of the past does not enlighten the future.
And all this is because no deep roots have been struck in the crowd;
because, instead of having a hundred fools at work, we have a dozen
wise men. A dozen wise men can be wiped out at a snap, but when
the organization embraces the crowd, everything will proceed from
the crowd, and nobody, however zealous, can stop the cause." (P. 63.)
The facts are described correctly. The above quotation presents a
fairly good picture of our primitive methods. But the conclusions drawn
from it are worthy of Rabochaya Mysl both for their stupidity and their
political tactlessness. They represent the height of stupidity, because the
author confuses the philosophical and social-historical question of the
"depth" of the "roots" of the movement with the technical and organiza-
tional question of the best method of fighting the gendarmes. They rep-
resent the height of political tactlessness, because the author, instead
of appealing from the bad leaders to the good leaders, appeals from the
leaders in general to the "crowd." This is as much an attempt to drag
the movement back organizationally as the idea of substituting excita-
tive terrorism for political agitation is an attempt to drag it back polit-
ically. Indeed, I am experiencing a veritable embarras de richesse^, and
hardly know where to begin to disentangle the confusion Swboda has
introduced in this subject. For the sake of clarity, I shall begin by quoting
an example. Take the Germans. It will not be denied, I hope, that the
German organizations embrace the crowd, that in Germany everything
proceeds from the crowd, that the working-class movement there has
learned to walk. Yet observe how this vast crowd of millions values its
"dozen" tried political leaders, how firmly it clings to them! Members
of the hostile parties in parliament often tease the Socialists by exclaim-
ing: "Fine democrats you are indeed! Your movement is a working-
class movement only in name; as a matter of fact, it is the same clique
of leaders that is always in evidence, Bebel and Liebknecht, year in
and year out, and that goes on for decades. Your deputies who are sup-
232 V. I. LENIN
posed to be elected from among the workers are more permanent than the
officials appointed by the Emperor!" But the Germans only smile with
contempt at these demagogic attempts to set the "crowd" against the
"leaders," to arouse bad and ambitious instincts in the former, and to
rob the movement of its solidity and stability by undermining the con-
fidence of the masses in their "dozen wise men." The political ideas of
the Germans have already developed sufficiently and they have acquired
enough political experience to enable them to understand that without
the "dozen" tried and talented leaders (and talented men are not born
by the hundred), professionally trained, schooled by long experience
and working in perfect harmony, no class in modern society is capable
of conducting a determined struggle. The Germans have had demagogues
in their ranks who have flattered the "hundred fools," exalted them above
the "dozen wise men," extolled the "mighty fists" of the masses, and
(like Most and Hasselmann) have spurred them on to reckless "revolu-
tionary" action and sown distrust towards the firm and steadfast leaders.
It was only by stubbornly and bitterly combating every element of dem-
agogy within the Socialist movement that German Socialism managed
to grow and become as strong as it is. Our wiseacres, however, at the very
moment when Russian Social-Democracy is passing through a crisis
entirely due to our lack of sufficient numbers of trained, developed and
experienced leaders to guide the spontaneous ferment of the masses, cry
out with the profundity of fools, "it is a bad thing when the movement
does not proceed from the rank and file."
"A committee of students is no good, it is not stable." Quite true.
But the conclusion that should be drawn from this is that we must have
a committee of profess ion.a.1 revolutionaries and it does not matter whether
a student or a worker is capable of qualifying himself as a professional
revolutionary. The conclusion y&u draw, however, is that the working-
class movement must not be pushed on from outside! In your political
innocence you fail to observe that you are playing into the hands of
our Economists and fostering our primitiveness. In what way, I would
like to ask, did the students "push on" the workers? Solely by the stu-
dent bringing to the worker the scraps of political knowledge he himself
possessed, the crumbs of Socialist ideas he had managed to acquire (for
the principal intellectual diet of the present-day student, "legal Marx-
ism," can furnish only the ABC, only the crumbs of knowledge). There
has never been too much of such "pushing on from outside," on the con-
trary, so far there has been too little, all too little of it in our movement;
we have been stewing in our own juice far too long; we have bowed far
too slavishly before the spontaneous "economic struggle of the workers
against the employers and the government." We professional revolution-
aries must make it our business and we will make it our business to
continue this kind of "pushing" a hundred times more forcibly than we
have done hitherto. The very fact that you select so despicable a phrase as
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 233
"pushing on from outside" — a phrase which cannot but rouse in the work-
ers (at least in the workers who are as ignorant as you yourselves are)
a sense of distrust towards all who bring them political knowledge and
revolutionary experience from outside, and rouse in them an instinctive
hostility to all such people — proves that you are demagogues, and a
demagogue is the worst enemy of the working class.
Ohl Don't start howling about my "uncomradely methods" of con-
troversy. I have not the least intention of casting aspersions upon the
purity of your intentions. As I have already said, one may become a
demagogue out of sheer political innocence. But I have shown that you
have descended to demagogy, and I shall never tire of repeating that
demagogues are the worst enemies of the working class. They are the worst
enemies of the working class because they arouse bad instincts in the
crowd, because the ignorant worker is unable to recognize his enemies
in men who represent themselves, and sometimes sincerely represent
themselves, to be his friends. They are the worst enemies of the working
class because in this period of dispersion and vacillation, when our move-
ment is just beginning to take shape, nothing is easier than to employ
demagogic methods to side-track the crowd, which can realize its mis-
take only by bitter experience. That is why the slogan of the day for
Russian Social-Democrats must be: resolute opposition to Svoboda and
Rabocheye Dyelo, both of which have sunk to the level of demagogy.
We shall return to this subject again.*
"A dozen wise men can be more easily wiped out than a hundred fools !"
This wonderful truth (for which the hundred fools will always applaud
you) appears obvious only because in the very midst of the argument
you have skipped from one question to another. You began by talking,
and continued to talk, of wiping out a "committee," of wiping out an
"organization," and now you skip to the question of getting hold of
the "roots" of the movement in the "depths." The fact is, of course,
that our movement cannot be wiped out precisely because it has hundreds
and hundreds of thousands of roots deep down among the masses; but
that is not the point we are discussing. As far as "deep roots" are con-
cerned, we cannot be "wiped out" even now, in spite of all our primitive-
ness, but we all complain, and cannot but complain, that "organiza-
tions" are wiped out, with the result that it is impossible to maintain
continuity in the movement. If you agree to discuss the quest ion of wip-
ing out the organizations and to stick to that question, then I assert
that it is far more difficult to wipe out a dozen wise men than a hundred
fools. And this position I shall defend no matter how much you instigate
* For the moment we shall observe merely that our remarks on "pushing on
from outside" and the other views on oiganization expressed by Svoboda apply
entirely to all the Economists, including the adherents of Rabocheye Dyelo, for
either they themselves have preached and defended such views on organization,
or have themselves drifted into them.
234 V. I. LENIN
the crowd against me for my "anti-democratic" views, etc. As I have
already said, by "wise men," in connection with organization, I mean
professional revolutionaries, irrespective of whether they are trained from
among students or workingmen. I assert: 1) that no movement can en-
dure without a stable organization of leaders that maintains continuity;
2) that the wider the masses spontaneously drawn into the struggle,
forming the basis of the movement and participating in it, the more
urgent the need of such an organization, and the more solid this organi-
zation must be (for it is much easier for demagogues to side-track the more
backward sections of the masses); 3) that such an organization must
consist chiefly of people professionally engaged in revolutionary activity;
4) that in an autocratic state the more we confine the membership of
such an organization to people who are professionally engaged in rev-
olutionary activity and who have been professionally trained in the art
of combating the political police, the more difficult will it be to wipe out
such an organization, and 5) the greater will be the number of people
of the working class and of other classes of society who will be able to
join the movement and perform active work in it.
I invite our Economists, terrorists and "Economists-terrorists"* to
confute these propositions. At the moment, I shall deal only with the last
two points. The question as to whether it is easier to wipe out "a dozen
wise men" or "a hundred fools" reduces itself to the question we have
considered above, namely, whether it is possible to have a mass organi-
zation when the maintenance of strict secrecy is essential. We can never
give a mass organization that degree of secrecy which is essential for
the persistent and continuous struggle against the government. But to
concentrate all secret functions in the hands of as small a number of
professional revolutionaries as possible does not mean that the latter
will "do the thinking for all" and that the crowd will not take an active
part in the movement. On the contrary, the crowd will advance from its
ranks increasing numbers of professional revolutionaries; for it will know
that it is not enough for a few students and workingmen, waging econom-
ic war, to gather together and form a "committee," but that it takes
years to train oneself to be a professional revolutionary; the crowd will
* This latter term is perhaps more applicable to Svoboda than the former,
for in an article entitled "The Regeneration of Revolutionism" it defends terror-
ism, while in the article at present under review it defends Economism. One
might say of Svoboda that "it would if it could, but it can't." Its wishes and inten-
tions are excellent — but the result is utter confusion; and this is chiefly due to the
fact that while Svoboda advocates continuity of organization, it refuses to recog-
nize the continuity of revolutionary thought and of Social-Democratic theory.
It wants to revive the professional revolutionary ("The Regeneration of Revolu-
tionism"), and to that end proposes, first, excitative terrorism, and secondly,
"the organization of the average worker" (Svoboda, No. 1, p. 66 et seq.)9 because
he will be less likely to be "pushed on from outside." In other words, it proposes
to pull the house down to use the timber for warming it.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 236
"think" not of primitive methods alone but of this particular type of
training. The centralization of the secret functions of the organization
does not mean the centralization of all the functions of the movement.
The active participation of the broad masses in the dissemination of
illegal literature will not diminish because a "dozen" professional rev-
olutionaries centralize the secret part of the work; on the contrary, it
will increase tenfold. Only in this way will the reading of illegal litera-
ture, the contribution to illegal literature and to some extent even the
distribution of illegal literature almost cease to be secret n>ork9 for the po-
lice will soon come to realize the folly and futility of setting the whole
judicial and administrative machine into motion to intercept every copy
of a publication that is being broadcast in thousands. This applies not only
to the press, but to every function of the movement, even to demonstra-
tions. The active and widespread participation of the masses will not
suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the fact that a "dozen" experi-
enced revolutionaries, no less professionally trained than the police, will
centralize all the secret side of the work — prepare leaflets, work out ap-
proximate plans and appoint bodies of leaders for each urban district,
for each factory district and for each educational institution, etc. (I know
that exception will be taken to my "undemocratic" views, but I shall
reply fully to this altogether unintelligent objection later on.) The central-
ization of the more secret functions in an organization of revolutionaries
will not diminish, but rather increase the extent and quality of the activ-
ity of a large number of other organizations which are intended for a
broad public and are therefore as loose and as non-secret as possible, such
as workers' trade unions, workers' circles for self- education and the read-
ing of illegal literature, Socialist and democratic circles among all
other sections of the population, etc., etc. We must have such circles,
trade unions and organizations everywhere in as large a number as pos-
sible and with the widest variety of functions; but it would be absurd
and dangerous to confuse them with the organization of revolutionaries,
to obliterate the border line between them, to dim still more the masses'
already incredibly hazy appreciation of the fact that in order to "sen e" the
mass movement we must have people who will devote themselves exclusive-
ly to Social-Democratic activities, and that such people must train
themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional revolutionaries.
Aye, this appreciation has become incredibly dim. The most griev-
ous sin we have committed in regard to organization is that by our
primitiveness n>e liave lowered the prestige of revolutionaries in Russia.
A man who is weak and vacillating on theoretical questions, who has
a narrow outlook, who makes excuses for his own slackness on the ground
that the masses are awakening spontaneously, who resembles a trade
union secretary more than a people's tribune, who is unable to conceive
of a broad and bold plan that would command the respect even of op-
po-ents and who is inexperienced and clumsy in his own professional
236 V. I. LENIN
art — the art of combating the political police — such a man is not a
revolutionary but a wretched amateur 1
Let no active worker take offence at these frank remarks, for as far
as insufficient training is concerned, I apply them first and foremost to
myself. I used to work in a circle* that set itself great and all-embracing
tasks; and every member of that circle suffered to the point of torture
from the realization that we were proving ourselves to be amateurs at
a moment in history when we might have been able to say, paraphrasing
a well-known epigram: "Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and
we shall overturn the whole of Russia!" And the more I recall the burn-
ing sense of shame I then experienced, the more bitter are my feelings
towards those pseudo- Social-Democrats whose teachings "bring disgrace
on the calling of a revolutionary," who fail to understand that our task
is not to champion degrading the revolutionary to the level of an ama-
teur, but to exalt the amateurs to the level of revolutionaries.
D. The Scope of Organizational Work
We have already heard from B — v about "the lack of revolutionary
forces fit for action which is felt not only in St. Petersburg, but through-
out the whole of Russia." No one, we suppose, will dispute this fact. But
the question is, how is it to be explained? B — v writes:
"We shall not enter in detail into the historical causes of this
phenomenon; we shall state merely that a society, demoralized
by prolonged political reaction and split by past and present eco-
nomic changes, advances from its own ranks an extremely small
number of persona fit for revolutionary work; that the working class
does advance from its own ranks revolutionary workers who to
some extent reinforce the ranks of the illegal organizations, but
that the number of such revolutionaries is inadequate to meet
the requirements of the times. This is more particularly the case
because the worker engaged for eleven and a half hours a day in
the factory is mainly able to fulfil the functions of an agitator;
but propaganda and organization, delivery and reproduction of
illegal literature, issuing leaflets, etc., are duties which must nec-
essarily fall mainly upon the shoulders of an extremely small
force of intellectuals." (Eabocheye Dyelo, No. 6, pp. 38-39.)
There are many points in the above upon which we disagree with B— v,
particularly with those points we have emphasized, and which most
strikingly reveal that, although weary of our primitive methods (as
every practical worker who thinks over the position would be), B— v
cannot find the way out of this intolerable situation, because he is so
ground down by Economism. It is not true to say that society advances
* Lenin refers to his own work in St. Petersburg in 1893-95. — Ed.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 237
few persons from its ranks fit for "work." It advances very many, but
we are unable to make use of them all. The critical, transitional state
of our movement in this connection may be formulated as follows: there
are no people — yet there are enormous numbers of people. There are enormous
numbers of people, because the working class and the most diverse strata
of society, year after year, advance from their ranks an increasing num-
ber of discontented people who desire to protest, who are ready to render
all the assistance they can in the fight against absolutism, the intolerable-
ness of which is not yet recognized by all, but is nevertheless more
and more acutely sensed by increasing masses of the people. At the same
time we have no people, because we have no leaders, no political leaders,
we have no talented organizers capable of organizing extensive and at
the same time uniform and harmonious work that would give employment
to all forces, even the most inconsiderable. "The growth and develop-
ment of revolutionary organizations," not only lag behind the growth of
the labour movement, which even B — v admits, but also behind the gen-
eral democratic movement among all strata of the people (in passing,
probably B— v would now admit this supplement to his conclusion). The
scope of revolutionary work is too narrow compared with the breadth
of the spontaneous basis of the movement. It is too hemmed in by the
wretched "economic struggle against the employers and the govern-
ment" theory. And yet, at the present time, not only Social-Democratic
political agitators, but also Social-Democratic organizers must "go among
all classes of the population."*
There is hardly a single practical worker who would have any doubt
about the ability of Social-Democrats to distribute the thousand and one
minute functions of their organizational work among the various repre-
sentatives of the most varied classes. Lack of specialization is one of our
most serious technical defects, about which B — v justly and bitterly com-
plains. The smaller each separate "operation" in our common cause will
be, the more people we shall find capable of carrying out such operations
(people, who in the majority of cases, are not capable of becoming profes-
sional revolutionaries), the more difficult will it be for the police to "net"
all these "detail workers," and the more difficult will it be for them
to frame up, out of an arrest for some petty affair, a "case" that would
justify the government's expenditure on the "secret service." As for the
number ready to help us, we have already referred in the previous chap-
ter to the gigantic change that has taken place in this respect in the last
five years or so. On the other hand, in order to unite all these tiny frac-
* For example, in military circles an undoubted revival of the democratic
spirit has recently been observed, partly as a consequence of the frequent street
fights that now take place against "enemies" like workers and students. And as
soon as our available forces permit, we must without fail devote serious attention
to propaganda and agitation among soldiers and officers, and to the creation of
"military organizations" affiliated to our Party,
^8 V. I. LENIN
tions into one whole, in order, in breaking up functions, to avoid breaking
up the movement, and in order to imbue those who carry out these minute
functions with the conviction that their work is necessary and important,
for without this they will never do the work,* it is necessary to have a
strong organization of tried revolutionaries. The more secret such an or-
ganization would be, the stronger and more widespread would be the
confidence -of the masses in the Party, and, as we know, in time of war,
it is not only of great importance to imbue one's own army with confi-
dence in its own strength, it is important also to convince the enemy and
all neutral elements of this strength; friendly neutrality may sometimes
decide the issue. If such an organization existed, an organization built
up on a firm theoretical foundation and possessing a Social-Democratic
journal, we would have no reason to fear that the movement would be
diverted from its path by the numerous "outside" elements that are at-
tracted to it. (On the contrary, it is precisely at the present time, when
primitive methods prevail among us, that many Social-Democrats are
observed to gravitate towards the Credo, and only imagine that they are
Social-Democrats.) In a word, specialization necessarily presupposes
centralization, and in its turn imperatively calls for it.
But B — v himself, who has so excellently described the necessity for
specialization, underestimates its importance, in our opinion, in the second
part of the argument that we have quoted. The number of working-class
revolutionaries is inadequate, he says. This is absolutely true, and once
again we assert that the "valuable communication of a close observer" fully
confirms our view of the causes of the present crisis in Social-Democracy,
and, consequently, confirms our view of the means for removing these
causes. Not only are revolutionaries lagging behind the spontaneous
awakening of the masses generajly, but even working-class revolution-
* I recall the story a comrade related to me of a factory inspector, who, desiring
to help, and while in fact helping the Social-Democrats, bitterly complained
that he did not know whether the "information" he sent reached the proper revo-
lutionary quarter; he did not know how much his help was really required, and
what possibilities there were for utilizing his small services. Every practical
worker, of course, knows of more than one case, similar to this, of our primitivencss
depriving us of allies. And these services, each "small" in itself, but incalculable
when taken in the mass, could be rendered to us by office employees and officials
not only in factories, but in the postal service, on the railways, in the Customs,
among the nobility, among the clergy and every other walk of life, including even
in the police service and at Court! Had we a real party, a real militant organization
of revolutionaries, we would not put the question bluntly to every one of these
"abettors," we would not hasten in every single case to bring them right into
the very heart of our "illegality," but, on the contrary, we would husband them
very carefully and would train people especially for such functions, bearing in
mind the fact that many students could be of much greater service to the Party
as "abettors" — officials — than as "short-term" revolutionaries. But, I repeat,
only an organization that is already established and has no lack of active forces
would have the right to apply such tactics.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 239
aries are lagging behind the spontaneous awakening of the working-class
masses. And this fact most strikingly confirms, even from the "practi-
cal" point of view, not only the absurdity but even the political reaction-
ariness of the "pedagogics" to which we are so often treated when discussing
our duties to the workers. This fact proves that our very first and most
imperative duty is to help to train working-class revolutionaries who will
be on the same level in regard to Party activity as the revolutionaries from
amongst the intellectuals (we emphasize the words "in regard to Party
activity," because although it is necessary, it is not so easy and not so
imperative to bring the workers up to the level of intellectuals in other
respects). Therefore, attention must be devoted principally to the task
of raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries, and not to degrading
ourselves to the level of the "labour masses" as the Economists wish to
do, or necessarily to the level of the "average worker," as Svoboda desires
to do (and by this raises itself to the second grade of Economist "peda-
gogics"). I am far from denying the necessity for popular literature for
the workers, and especially popular (but, of course, not vulgar) literature
for the especially backward workers. But what annoys me is that pedagog-
ics is constantly confused with questions of politics and organization.
You, gentlemen, who are so much concerned about the "average worker,"
as a matter of fact, rather insult the workers by your desire to talk down
to them when discussing labour politics and labour organization. Talk
about serious things in a serious manner; leave pedagogics to the peda-
gogues, and not to politicians and to organizers! Are there not advanced
people, "average people," and "masses," among the intelligentsia?
Does not everyone recognize that popular literature is required also for
the intelligentsia and is not such literature written? Just imagine some-
one, in an article on organizing college or high-school students, repeating
over and over again, as if he had made a new discovery, that first of all
we must have an organization of "average students." The author of such
an article would rightly be laughed at. He would be told: give us your
ideas on organization, if you have any, and we ourselves will settle
the question as to which of us are "average," as to who is higher and who
is lower. But if you have no organizational ideas of your O»TI, then all your
chatter about "masses" and "average" is simply boring. Try to under-
stand that these questions about "politics" and "organization" are so
serious in themselves that they cannot be dealt with in any other but
a serious way. We can and must educate workers (and university and high-
school students) so as to be able to discuss these questions with them; and
once you do bring up these questions for discussion, then give real replies
to them, do not fall back on the "average," or on the "masses"; don't
evade them by quoting adages or mere phrases.*
* Svoboda, No. 1, p. 66, in the article "Organization": "The heavy tread of
the army of labour will reinforce all the demands that will be advanced by Russian
240 V. I. LENIN
In order to be fully prepared for his task, the working-class revolu-
tionary must also become a professional revolutionary. Hence B — v
is wrong when he says that as the worker is engaged for eleven and a half
hours a day in the factory, therefore, the brunt of all the other revolu-
tionary functions (apart from agitation) "must necessarily fall mainly
upon the shoulders of an extremely small force of intellectuals." It
need not "necessarily" be so. It is so because we are backward, because
we do not recognize our duty to assist every capable worker to become
a professional agitator, organizer, propagandist, literature distributor,
etc., etc. In this respect, we waste our strength in a positively shameful
manner; we lack the ability to husband that which should be tended and
reared with special care. Look at the Germans: they have a hundred
times more forces than we have. But they understand perfectly well
that the "average" does not too frequently promote really capable agi-
tators, etc., from its ranks. Hence they immediately try to place every
capable workingman in such conditions as will enable him to develop
and apply his abilities to the utmost: he is made a professional agitator,
he is encouraged to widen the field of his activity, to spread it from one
factory to the whole of his trade, from one locality to the whole country.
He acquires experience and dexterity in his profession, his outlook be-
comes wider, his knowledge increases, he observes the prominent political
leaders from other localities and other parties, he strives to rise to their
level and combine within himself the knowledge of working-class envi-
ronment and freshness of Socialist convictions with professional skill,
without which the proletariat cannot carry on a stubborn struggle with
the excellently trained enemy. Only in this way can men of the stamp of
Bebel and Auer be promoted from the ranks of the working class. But
what takes place very largely automatically in a politically free country
must in Russia be done deliberately and systematically by our organiza-
tions. A workingman agitator who is at all talented and "promising"
must not be left to work eleven hours a day in a factory. We must arrange
that he be maintained by the Party, that he may in due time go under-
ground, that he change the place of his activity, otherwise he will not
enlarge his experience, he will not widen his outlook, and will not be able
to stay in the fight against the gendarmes for at least a few years. As the
spontaneous rise of the working-class masses becomes wider and deeper,
they not only promote from their ranks an increasing number of talented
agitators, but also of talented organizers, propagandists and "practical
workers" in the best sense of the term (of whom there are so few among
Labour" — Labour with a capital L, of course. And this very author exclaims:
**I am not in the least hostile towards the intelligentsia, but" (this is the very word,
but, that Shchedrin translated as meaning: the ears never grow higher than the fore-
head, ncverl) "but it always frightfully annoys me when a man comes to me, utters
beautiful and charming words and demands that they be accepted for their (his)
beauty and other virtues." (P. 62.) Yes. This "always frightfully annoys" me too.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 241
our intelligentsia who, in the majority of cases, are somewhat careless
and sluggish in their habits, so characteristic of Russians). When we have
detachments of specially trained working-class revolutionaries who have
gone through long years of preparation (and, of course, revolutionaries
"of all arms"), no political police in the world will be able to contend
against them, for these detachments of men absolutely devoted and loyal
to the revolution will themselves enjoy the absolute confidence and devo-
tion of the broad masses of the workers. The sin we commit is that we do not
sufficiently "stimulate" the workers to take this path, "common" to
them and to the "intellectuals," of professional revolutionary train-
ing, and that we too frequently drag them back by our silly speeches about
what "can be understood" by the masses of the workers, by the "average
workers," etc.
In this, as in other cases, the narrowness of our field of organizational
work is without a doubt directly due (although the overwhelming ma-
jority of the "Economists" and the novices in practical work do not ap-
preciate it) to the fact that we restrict our theories and our political
tasks to a narrow field. Bowing in worship to spontaneity seems to inspire
a fear of taking even one step away from what "can be understood" by
the masses, a fear of rising too high above mere subservience to the imme-
diate and direct requirements of the masses. Have no fear, gentlemen!
Remember that we stand so low on the plane of organization that the
very idea that we could rise too high is absurd!
E. "Conspirative" Organization and "Democracy"
And }et there are many people among us who are so sensitive to the
"voice of life" that they fear it more than anything in the world and accuse
those who adhere to the views here expounded of "Narodnaya Volya"-ism,
of failing to understand "democracy," etc. We must deal with these
accusations, which, of course, have been echoed by Itabocheye Dyelo.
The writer of these lines knows very well that the St. Petersburg-
Economists even accused Rabochaya Gazetaof being Narodnaya Volya-ite
(which is quite understandable when one compares it with Eabochaya
Mysl). We were not in the least surprised, therefore, when, soon after
the appearance of Iskra, a comrade informed us that the Social-Dem-
ocrats in the town of X describe lakra as a "Narodnaya Volya"-ite journal.
We, of course, were flattered by this accusation. What real Social-
Democrat has not been accused by the Economists of being a Narodnaya
Volya-ite?
These accusations are called forth by a twofold misunderstanding.
First, the history of the revolutionary movement is so little known among
us that the very idea of a militant centralized organization which declares
a determined war upon tsarism is described as "Narodnaya Volya"-
16-685
842 V. I. LENIN
ite. But the magnificent organization that the revolutionaries had in
the 'seventies, and which should serve us all as a model, was not formed
by the Narodnaya Volya-ites but by the adherents of Zemlya i Volya,*
who split up into Cherny Peredel-ites** and Narodnaya Volya-ites.
Consequently, to regard a militant revolutionary organization as something
specifically Narodnaya Volya-ite is absurd both historically and logically,
because no revolutionary tendency, if it seriously thinks of fighting,
can dispense with such an organization. But the mistake the Narodnaya
Volya-ites committed was not that they strove to recruit to their organi-
zation all the discontented, and to hurl this organization into the deci-
sive battle against the autocracy; on the contrary, that was their great
historical merit. Their mistake was that they relied on a theory which
in substance was not a revolutionary theory at all, and they either did
not know how, or circumstances did not permit them, to link up their
movement inseparably with the class struggle that went on within devel-
oping capitalist society. And only a gross failure to understand Marxism
(or an "understanding" of it in the spirit of Struve-ism) could prompt the
opinion that the rise of a mass, spontaneous labour movement relieves
us of the duty of creating as good an organization of revolutionaries as
Zemlya i Volya had in its time, and even an incomparably better one. On
the contrary, this movement imposes this duty upon us, because the spon-
taneous struggle of the proletariat will not become a genuine "class strug-
gle" until it is led by a strong organization of revolutionaries.
Secondly, many, including apparently B. Krichevsky (Rabocheye
Dyelo9 No. 10, p. 18), misunderstand the polemics that Social-Democrats
have always waged against the "conspirative" view of the political strug-
gle. We have always protested, and will, of course, continue to protest
against confining the political struggle to conspiracies.*** But this does
not, of course, mean that we deny the need for a strong revolutionary
organization. And in the pamphlet mentioned in the preceding footnote,
after the polemics against reducing the political struggle to a conspiracy,
a description is given (as a Social-Democratic ideal) of an organization so
strong as to be able to "resort to ...rebellion" and to every "other form
of attack," in order to "deliver a smashing blow against absolutism."****
* Land and Freedom. — Ed.
** Cherny Pcredel-ites — Black Redistributionists, i.e., adherents of the
movement who advocated the seizure of the landed estates and the equal division
of all the land in the country by the peasants. — Ed.
*** Cf. The Tasks of Russian Social- Democrats, p. 21, Polemics against
P. L. Lavrov. (Sec this volume pp. 140-43.— Ed.)
**** Ibid., p. 23. (See this volume. . p. 142. — Ed.) Apropos, we shall give
another illustration ot the fact that Rdbocheye Dyelo either does not understand
what it is talking about, or changes its views "with every change in the wind."
In No. 1 of Rabocheye Dyelo, we find the following passage in italics: "The sum
and substance of the views expressed in this pamphlet coincide entirely with the edi-
torial program of « Rabocheye Dyelo.9" (P. 142.) Is that so, indeed? Does the view
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 243
According to its form a strong revolutionary organisation of that kind
in an autocratic country may also be described as a "conspirative" or-
ganization, because the French word "conspiration" is tantamount to
the Russian word "zagavor" ("conspiracy"), and we must have the ut-
most secrecy for an organization of that kind. Secrecy is such a necessary
condition for such an organization that all the other conditions (number
and selection of members, functions, etc.) must all be subordinated to
it. It would be extremely naive indeed, therefore, to fear the accusation
that we Social-Democrats desire to create a conspirative organization.
Such an accusation would be as flattering to every opponent of Economised
as the accusation of being followers of "Narodnaya Volya"-ism would be.
Against us it will be argued: such a powerful and strictly secret organ-
ization, which concentrates in its hands all the threads of secret ac-
tivities, an organization which of necessity must be a centralized or-
ganization, may too easily throw itself into a premature attack, may
thoughtlessly intensify the movement before political discontent, the
ferment and anger of the working class, etc., are sufficiently ripe for it.
To this we reply: speaking abstractly, it cannot be denied, of course,
that a militant organization may thoughtlessly commence a battle,
which may end in defeat, which might have been avoided under other
circumstances. But we cannot confine ourselves to abstract reasoning
on such a question, because every battle bears within itself the abstract
possibility of defeat, and there is no other way of reducing this possi-
bility than by organized preparation for battle. If, however, we base our
argument on the concrete conditions prevailing in Russia at the present
time, we must come to the positive conclusion that a strong revolutionary
organization is absolutely necessary precisely for the purpose of giving
firmness to the movement, and of safeguarding it against the possibility
of its making premature attacks. It is precisely at the present time, when
no such organization exists yet, and when the revolutionary movement
is rapidly and spontaneously growing, that we already obseire two oppo-
site extremes (which, as is to be expected "meet"), i.e., absolutely un-
sound Economism and the preaching of moderation, and equally unsound
"excitative terror," which "strives artificially to call forth symptoms
of its end in a movement which is developing and becoming strong, but
which is as yet nearer to its beginning than to its end." (V. Zasulich,
in Zarya, No. 2-3, p. 353.) And the example of Rabocheye Dyelo shows
that there are already Social-Democrats who give way to both these ex-
that the mass movement must not be set the primary task of overthrowing the autoc-
racy coincide with the views expressed in the pamphlet, The Tasks of Russian
Social- Democrats'? Do "the economic struggle against the employers and the
government" theory and the stages theory coincide with the views expressed in
that pamphlet? We leave it to the reader to judge whether an organ which under-
stands the meaning of "coincidence" in this peculiar manner can have firm prin-
ciples.
16*
244 V. 1. LENIN
tremes. This is not surprising because, apart from other reasons the "eco-
nomic struggle against the employers and the government" can never
satisfy revolutionaries, and because opposite extremes will always arise
here and there. Only a centralized, militant organization that consistently
carries out a Social-Democratic policy, that satisfies, so to speak, all
revolutionary instincts and strivings, can safeguard the movement against
making thoughtless attacks and prepare it for attacks that hold out the
promise of success.
It will be further argued against us that the views on organization here
expounded contradict the "principles of democracy." Now while the
first-mentioned accusation was of purely Russian origin, this one is of
purely foreign origin. And only an organization abroad (the "Union" of
Russian Social-Democrats) would be capable of giving its editorial board
instructions like the following:
"Principles of Organization. In order to secure the successful
development and unification of Social-Democracy, broad democrat-
ic principles of Party organization must be emphasized, developed
and fought for; and this is particularly necessary in view of the anti-
democratic tendencies that have become revealed in the ranks of our
Party." (Two Congresses, p. 18.)
We shall see how Rabocheye Dyelo fights against Iskra's "anti-democratic
tendencies" in the next chapter. Here we shall examine more closely
the "principle" that the Economists advance. Everyone will probably
agree that "broad democratic principles" presuppose the two following
conditions: first, full publicity, and second, election to all offices. It
would be absurd to speak about democracy without publicity, that is,
a publicity that extends beyond the circle of the membership of the organ-
ization. We call the German Socialist Party a democratic organization
because all it does is done publicly; even its party congresses are held
in public. But no one would call an organization that is hidden from every
one but its members by a veil of secrecy, a democratic organization.
What is the use of advancing "broad democratic principles" when the
fundamental condition for these principles cannot be fulfilled by a secret
organization? "Broad principles" turns out to be a resonant but hollow
phrase. More than that, this phrase proves that the urgent tasks in regard
to organization are totally misunderstood. Everyone knows how great is
the lack of secrecy among the "broad" masses of revolutionaries. We have
heard the bitter complaints of B — v on this score, and his absolutely
just demand for a "strict selection of members." (Rabocheye Dyelo,
No. 6, p. 42.) And people who boast about their "sensitiveness to life"
come forward in a situation like this, and urge, not strict secrecy and
a strict (and therefore more restricted) selection of members but "broad
democratic principles 1" This is what we call being absolutely wide
of the mark.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 245
Nor is the situation with regard to the second attribute of democracy,
namely, the principle of election, any better. In politically free countries,
this condition is taken for granted. "Membership of the Party is open to
those who accept the principles of the Party program, and render all
the support they can to the Party" — says point I of the rules of the German
Social-Democratic Party. And as the political arena is as open to the pub-
lic view as is the stage in a theatre, this acceptance or non-acceptance,
support or opposition, is known to all from the press and public meetings.
Everyone knows that a certain political figure began in such and such a
way, passed through such and such an evolution, behaved in a trying
moment in such and such a way and possesses sucj^^edajigjiqualities
and, consequently, knowing all the facts of the JiJ0^H^|H^J^^J£mber
can decide for himself whether or not to eleq
Party office. The general control (in the litj
the Party exercises over every act this pej
field brings into existence an automatical!/
brings about what in biology is called "suij
selection" of full publicity, the principle '
trol provide the guarantee that, in the
figure will be "in his proper place," will do
fitted by his strength and abilities, will feel tfl^flji^^Hii^m^^K on
himself, and prove before all the world his ability tS^gg^hiz^gi^iiKes and
to avoid them.
Try to put this picture in the frame of our autocracy! Is it conceivable
in Russia for all those "who accept the principles of the Party program
and render all the support they can to the Party" to control every action
of the revolutionary working in secret? Is it possible for all the revolu-
tionaries to elect one of their number to any particular office, when, in
the very interests of the work, he mu$t conceal his identity from nine
outof ten of these "all"? Ponder a little over the real meaning of the high-
sounding phrases that Rabocheye Dyelo gives utterance to, and you will
realize that "broad democracy" in Party organization, amidst the gloom
of autocracy and the domination of gendarme selection, is nothing more
than a useless and harmful toy. It is a useless toy because, as a matter of
fact, no revolutionary organization has ever practised broad democracy,
nor could it, however much it desired to do so. It is a harmful toy because
any attempt to practise the "broad democratic principles" will simply
facilitate the work of the police in making big raids, it will perpetuate
the prevailing primitiveness, divert the thoughts of the practical work-
ers from the serious and imperative task of training themselves to
become professional revolutionaries to that of drawing up detailed "paper"
rules for election systems. Only abroad, where very often people who
have no opportunity of doing real live work gather together, can the
"game of democracy" be played here and there, especially in.
groups,
Wo V. I. LENIN
In order to show how implausible Rabocheye Dyelo's favourite trick
Is of advancing the plausible "principle" of democracy in revolutionary
affairs, we shall again call a witness. This witness, E. Sercbryakov,
the editor of the London magazine, Nalcanunye, has a tender feeling for
Rabocheye Dyelo, and is filled with hatred against Plekhanov and the
Plekhano^ites. In articles that it published on the split in the "Foreign
Union of Russian Social-Democrats, " Nakanunye definitely took the side
of Rabocheye Dyelo and poured a stream of despicable abuse upon Plekha-
nov. But this only makes this witness all the more valuable for us on
this question. In No. 7 of Nakanunye (July 1899), in an article entitled
"The Manifesto of the Self- Emancipation of the Workers Group," E. Se-
rebryakov argues that it was "indecent" to talk about such things as
"self-deception, priority and so-called Areopagus in a serious revolutionary
movement" and inter alia wrote:
"Myshkin, Rogachev, Zhelyabov, Mikhailov, Perovskaya,
Figner and others never regarded themselves as leaders, and no
one ever elected or appointed them as such, although as a matter
of fact, they were leaders because, in the propaganda period, as
well as in the period of the fight against the government, they took
the brunt of the work upon themselves, they went into the most
dangerous places and their activities were the most fruitful. Leader-
ship came to them not because they wished it, but because the
comrades surrounding them had confidence in their wisdom, their
energy and loyalty. To be afraid of some kind of Areopagus
f if it is not feared, why write about it?] that would arbitrarily
govern the movement is far too naive. Who would obey it?"
We ask the reader, in what way does "Areopagus" differ from
"anti-democratic tendencies"? And is it not evident that Rabocheye
Dyelo's "plausible" organizational principle is equally naive and inde-
cent; naive, because no one would obey "Areopagus," or people with
"anti- democratic tendencies," if "the comrades surrounding them had"
no "confidence in their wisdom, energy and loyalty"; indecent, because
it is a demagogic sally calculated to play on the conceit of some, on the
ignorance of the actual state of our movement on the part of others, and
on the lack of training and ignorance of the history of the revolution-
ary movement of still others. The only serious organizational principle
the active workers of our movement can accept is strict secrecy, strict
selection of members and the training of professional revolutionaries.
If we possessed these qualities, something even more than "democracy"
would be guaranteed to us, namely, complete, comradely, mutual con-
fidence among revolutionaries. And this is absolutely essential for us
because in Russia it is useless thinking that democratic control can serve
as a substitute for it. It would be a great mistake to believe that because
it is impossible to establish real "democratic" control, the members of;
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 247
the revolutionary organization will remain altogether uncontrolled.
They have not the time to think about the toy forms of democracy (de-
mocracy within a close and compact body of comrades in which complete,
mutual confidence prevails), but they have a lively sense of their respon-
sibility, because they know from experience that an organization of real
revolutionaries will stop at nothing to rid itself of an undesirable mem-
ber. Moreover, there is a fairly well-developed public opinion in Russian
(and international) revolutionary circles which has a long history behind
it, and which sternly and ruthlessly punishes every departure from the
duties of comradeship (and does not "democracy," real and not toy
democracy, form a part of the conception of comradeship?). Take all
this into consideration and you will realise that all the talk and resolu-
tions about "anti-democratic tendencies" has the fetid odour of the game
of generals that is played abroad.
It must be observed also that the other source of this talk, i.e., naive-
te, is likewise fostered by the confusion of ideas concerning the meaning
of democracy. In Mr. and Mrs. Webb's book on trade unionism,* there
is an interesting chapter entitled "Primitive Democracy." In this chap-
ter, the authors relate how, in the first period of existence of their unions,
the British workers thought that it was an indispensable sign of democracy
for all the members to do all the work of managing the unions; not only
were all questions decided by the votes of all the members, but all the
official duties were fulfilled by all the members in turn. A long period of
historical experience was required to teach these workers how absurd
such a conception of democracy was and to make them understand the
necessity for representative institutions on the one hand, and for full-
time professional officials on the other. Only after a number of cases of
financial bankruptcy of trade unions occurred did the workers realize
that rates of subscriptions and benefits cannot be decided merely by a
democratic vote, but must be based on the advice of insurance experts.
Let us take also Kautsky's book on parliamentarism and legislation by
the people. There you will find that the conclusions drawn by the Marxian
theoretician coincide with the lessons learned from many years of experi-
ence by the workers who organized "spontaneously." Kautsky strongly
protests against Rittinghausen's primitive conception of democracy;
he ridicules those who in the name of democracy demand that "popular
newspapers shall be directly edited by the people"; he shows the need for
^professional journalists, parliamentarians, etc., for the Social-Democratic
leadership of the proletarian class struggle; he attacks the "Socialism
of anarchists and litterateurs," who in their "striving after effect" pro-
claim the principle that laws should be passed directly by the whole
people, completely failing to understand that in modern society this prin-
ciple can have only a relative application.
*Thc History of Trade Unionism, — #<*t
248 V. I. LENIN
Those who have carried on practical work in our movement know how
widespread is the "primitive** conception of democracy among the masses
of the students and workers. It is not surprising that this conception per-
meates rules of organization and literature. The Economists of the Bern-
stem persuasion included in their rules the following: "§ 10. All affairs
affecting the interests of the whole of the union organization shall be
decided by a majority vote of all its members." The Economists of the
terrorist persuasion repeat after them: "The decisions of the committee
must be circulated among all the circles and become effective only after
this has been done." (Svoboda, No. 1, p. 67.) Observe that this proposal
for a widely applied referendum is advanced in addition to the demand
that the whol& of the organization be organized on an elective basis! We
would not, of course, on this account condemn practical workers who have
had too few opportunities for studying the theory and practice of real
democratic organization. But when Babocheye Dyelo, which claims to play
a leading role, confines itself, under such conditions, to resolutions
about broad democratic principles, how else can it be described than as
a mere "striving after effect"?
F. Local and All-Russian Work
Although the objections raised against the plan for an organization
outlined here on the grounds of its undemocratic and conspirative char-
acter arc totally unsound, nevertheless, a question still remains which
is frequently put and which deserves detailed examination. This is the
question about the relations between local work and all- Russian work.
Fears are expressed that the formation of a centralized organization would
shift the centre of gravity from the former to the latter; that this would
damage the movement, would weaken our contacts with the masses of the
workers, and would weaken local agitation generally. To these fears we
reply that our movement in the past few years has suffered precisely from
the fact that the local workers have been too absorbed in local work.
Hence it is absolutely necessary to shift the weight of the work somewhat
from local work to national work. This would not weaken, but on the con-
trary, it would strengthen our ties and the continuity of our local agita-*
tion. Take the question of central and local journals. I would ask the
reader not to forget that we cite the publication of journals only as an
example, illustrating an immeasurably broader, more widespread and var-
ied revolutionary activity.
In the first period of the mass movement (1896-98), an attempt is made
by local Party workers to publish an all- Russian journal, Rabochaya
Oazeta. In the next period (1898-1900), the movement makes enormous
strides, but the attention of the leaders is wholly absorbed by local publi*
cations, If we count up ^H the local journals that vw published, ^rc shalj
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 249
find that on the average one paper per month was published.* Does this
not illustrate our primitive ways? Does this not clearly show that our
revolutionary organization lags behind the spontaneous growth of the
movement? If the same number of issues had been published,not by scattered
local groups, but by a single organization, we would not only have saved
an enormous amount of effort, but we would have secured immeasurably
greater stability and continuity in our work. This simple calculation
is very frequently lost sight of by those practical workers who work active-
ly, almost exclusively, on local publications (unfortunately this is the
case even now in the overwhelming majority of cases), as well as by the
publicists who display an astonishing quixotism on this question. The
practical workers usually rest content with the argument that "it is
difficult"** for local workers to engage in the organization of an all-Rus-
sian newspaper, and that local newspapers are better than no newspapers at
all. The latter argument is, of course, perfectly just, and we shall not
yield to any practical worker in our recognition of the enormous impor-
tance and usefulness of local newspapers in general. But this is not the
point. The point is, can we rid ourselves of the state of diffusion and prim-
itivcness that is so strikingly expressed in the thirty numbers of local
newspapers published throughout the whole of Russia in the course of two
and a half years? Do not restrict yourselves to indisputable, but too gener-
al, statements about the usefulness of local newspapers generally; have
the courage also frankly to admit the defects that have been revealed by
the experience of two and a half years. This experience has shown that
under the conditions in which we work, these local newspapers prove, in
the majority of cases, to be unstable in their principles, lacking in polit-
ical significance, extremely costly in regard to expenditure of revolu-
tionary forces, and totally unsatisfactory from a technical point of view
(I have in mind, of course, not the technique of printing them, but the
frequency and regularity of publication). These defects are not acciden-
tal; they are the inevitable result of the diffusion which, on the one hand,
explains the predominance of local newspapers in the period under review,
and, on the other hand, is fostered by this predominance. A separate local
organization is positively unable to maintain stability of principles in
its newspaper and raise it to the level of a political organ; it is unable
to collect and utilize sufficient material dealing with the whole of our
political life. While in politically free countries it is often argued in de-
fence of numerous local newspapers that the cost of printing by local
workers is low and that the local population can be kept more fully and
* See Report to the Paris Congress, p. 14. "From that time [1897] to the spring
of 1900, thirty issues of various papers were published in various places.... On
an average, over one number per month was published."
** This difficulty is more apparent than real. As a matter of fact, there is
not a single local circle that lacks the opportunity of taking up some function
or other in connection with all.Russian work, "Don't §ay: I ca,n.'t; say; J won't,"
260 V. I. LENIN
quickly informed, experience has shown that in Russia this argument
speaks against local newspapers. In Russia, local newspapers prove to
be excessively costly in regard to the expenditure of revolutionary forces,
and appear very rarely, for the very simple reason that no matter how small
its size, the publication of an illegal newspaper requires a large secret
apparatus , such as requires large factory production; for such an appara-
tus cannot be created in a small, handicraft workshop. Very frequently,
the primitiveness of the secret apparatus (every practical worker knows
of numerous cases like this) enables the police to take advantage of the
publication and distribution of one or two numbers to make mass arrests,
which make such a clean sweep that it is necessary afterwards to start
all over again. A well-organized secret apparatus requires professionally
well-trained revolutionaries and proper division of labour, but neither of
these requirements can be met by separate local organizations, no matter
how strong they may be at any given moment. Not only are the general
interests of our movement as a whole (training of the workers in consistent
Socialist and political principles) better served by non-local newspapers,
but so also are even specifically local interests. This may seem paradoxical
at first sight, but it has been proved up to the hilt by the two and a half
years of experience to which we have already referred. Everyone will
agree that if all the local forces that were engaged in the publication of
these thirty issues of newspapers had worked on a single newspaper, they
could easily have published sixty if not a hundred numbers and, conse-
quently, would have more fully expressed all the specifically local features
of the movement. True, it is not an easy matter to attain such a high
degree of organization, but we must realize the need for it. Every local
circle must think about it, and work actively to achieve it, without wait-
ing to be pushed on from outside; and we must stop being tempted by
the easiness and closer proximity of a local newspaper which, as our revo-
lutionary experience has shown, proves to a large extent to be illusory.
And it is a bad service indeed those publicists render to the practical
work who, thinking they stand particularly close to the practical workers,
fail to see this illusoriness, and make shift with the astonishingly cheap
and astonishingly hollow argument: we must have local newspapers, we
must have district newspapers, and we must have all-Russian newspapers.
Generally speaking, of course, all these are necessary, but when you
undertake to solve a concrete organizational problem surely you must
take time and circumstances into consideration. Is it not quixotic on the
part of Svoboda (No. 1, p. 68), in a special article "dealing with the question
of a newspaper," to write: "It seems to us that every locality, where any
number of workers are collected, should have its own labour newspaper;
not a newspaper imported from somewhere or other, but its very own." If
the publicist who wrote that refuses to think about the significance of
his own words, then at least you, reader, think about it for him. How
many scores, if not hundreds, of "localities where any number of workers
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 251
are collected" are there in Russia, and would it not be simply perpetu-
ating our primitive methods if indeed every local organization set to work
to publish its own newspaper? How this diffusion would facilitate the task
of the gendarmes of netting — without any considerable effort at that —
the local Party workers at the very beginning of their activity and prevent-
ing them from developing into real revolutionaries! A reader of an ail-
Russian newspaper, continues the author, would not find descriptions
of the malpractices of the factory owners and the "details of factory life
in other towns outside his district at all interesting." But "an inhabitant
of Orel would not find it dull reading about Orel affairs. In every issue
he would learn of who had been 'called over the coals' and who had been
'exposed', and his spirits would begin to soar." (P. 69.) Yes, yes, the
spirit of the Orel reader would begin to soar, but the flights of imagina-
tion of our publicist are also beginning to soar — too high. He should have
asked himself: is such a defence of petty parochialism in place? We are
second to none in our appreciation of the importance and necessity of fac-
tory exposures, but it must be borne in mind that we have reached a stage
when St. Petersburg folk find it dull reading the St. Petersburg correspon-
dence of the St. Petersburg Mabochaya Mysl. Local factory exposures
have always been and should always continue to be made through the
medium of leaflets, but we must raise the level of the newspaper, and not
lower it to the level of a factory leaflet. We do not require "petty" expo-
sures for our "newspaper." We require exposures of the important, typi-
cal evils of factory life, exposures based on the most striking facts and
capable of arousing the interest of all workers and all leaders of the
movement, capable of really enriching their knowledge, widening their
outlook, and of rousing new districts and new professional strata of the
workers.
"Moreover, in a local newspaper, all the malpractices of the factory
officials and other authorities may be denounced hot on the spot. In the
case of a general newspaper, however, by the time the news reaches the
paper and by the time they are published the facts will have been forgot-
ten in the localities in which they occurred. The reader, when he gets
the paper, will say: 'God knows when that happened!' " (Ibid.) Exactly!
God knows when it happened. As we know from the source I have already
quoted, within a period of two and a half years, thirty issues of news-
papers were published in six cities. This, on the average, is one issue
per city per half year. And even if our frivolous publicist trebled his esti-
mate of the productivity of local work (which would be wrong in the
case of an average city, because it is impossible to increase productivity
to any extent by our primitive methods), we would still get only one
issue every two months, i.e., nothing at all like "denouncing hot on the
spot." It would be sufficient, however, to combine a dozen or so local
organizations, and assign active functions to their delegates in organiz-
ing a general newspaper, to enable us to "denounce," over the whole
252 V. I. LENIN
of Russia, not petty, but really outstanding and typical evils once every
fortnight. No one who has any knowledge at all of the state of affairs
in our organizations can have the slightest doubt about that. It is quite
absurd to talk about an illegal newspaper catching the enemy red-hand-
ed, that is, if we mean it seriously and not merely as a metaphor. That
can only b£ done by an anonymous leaflet, because an incident like that
can only be of interest for a matter of a day or two (take, for example,
the usual brief strikes, beatings in a factory, demonstrations, etc.).
"The workers not only live in factories, they also live in the cities,"
continues our author, rising from the particular to the general, with
a strict consistency that would have done honour to Boris Krichevsky
himself; and he refers to matters like municipal councils, municipal
hospitals, municipal schools, and demands that labour newspapers should
not ignore municipal affairs in general. This demand is an excellent one
in itself, but it serves as a remarkable illustration of the empty abstrac-
tion which too frequently characterizes discussions about local newspa-
pers. First of all, if indeed newspapers appeared "in every locality where
any number of workers are collected" with such detailed information
on municipal affairs as Svoboda desires, it would, under our Russian con-
ditions, inevitably degenerate into actual petty parochialism, would lead
to a weakening of the consciousness of the importance of an all- Russian
revolutionary attack upon the tsarist autocracy, and would strengthen
those extremely virile shoots of the tendency — not uprooted but rather
temporarily suppressed — which has already become notorious as a re-
sult of the famous remark about revolutionaries who talk a great deal
about non-existent parliaments and too little about existing municipal
councils. We say "inevitably" deliberately, in order to emphasize that
Svoboda obviously does not warit this but the contrary to happen. But
good intentions are not enough. In order that municipal affairs may be
dealt with in their proper perspective, in relation to the whole of our
work, this perspective must first be clearly conceived; it must be firmly
established, not only by argument, but by numerous examples, in order
that it may acquire the firmness of a tradition. This is far from being the
case with us yet. And yet this must be done first, before we can even
think and talk about an extensive local press.
Secondly, in order to be able to write well and interestingly about
municipal affairs, one must know these questions not only from books.
And there are hardly any Social-Democrats anywhere in Russia who
possess this knowledge. In order to be able to write in newspapers (not
in popular pamphlets) about municipal and state affairs, one must have
fresh and multifarious material collected and worked up by able journal-
ists. And in order to be able to collect and work up such material, we
must have something more than the "primitive democracy" of a primi-
tive circle, in which everybody does everything and all entertain one
another by playing at referendum?* Fpf this it is njejc^ssa.ry to hare % staff
WHAT IS TO BE DONE^ 2&3
of expert writers, expert correspondents, an army of Social-Democratic
reporters that has established contacts far and wide, able to fathom all
sorts of "state secrets" (about which the Russian government official
is so puffed up, but which he so easily blabs), able to penetrate "behind
the scenes," an army of people whose "official duty" it must be to be ubiq-
uitous and omniscient. And we, the party that fights against all econom-
ic, political, social and national oppression, can and must find, collect,
train, mobilize and set into motion such an army of omniscient people — •
but all this has yet to be done! Not only has not a single step been taken
towards this in the overwhelming majority of localities, but in many cases
the necessity for doing it is not even realized. Search our Social-Democrat-
ic press for lively and interesting articles, correspondence, and expo-
sures of our diplomatic, military, ecclesiastical, municipal, financial,
etc., etc., affairs and malpractices! You will find almost nothing, or
very little, about these things.* That is why "it always frightfully annoys
me when a man comes to me, utters beautiful and charming words"
about the need for newspapers that will expose factory, municipal and
government evils "in every locality where any number of workers are
collected!"
The predominance of the local press over the central press may be
either a symptom of poverty or a symptom of luxury. Of poverty, when
the movement has not yet developed the forces for large-scale production,
and continues to flounder in primitive ways and in "the petty details
of factory life." Of luxury, when the movement has already fully mas-
tered the task of all-sided exposure and all-sided agitation and it be-
comes necessary to publish numerous local newspapers in addition to the
central organ. Let each one decide for himself what the predominance
of local newspapers implies at the present time. I shall limit myself
to a precise formulation of my own conclusion in order to avoid grounds
for misunderstandings. Hitherto, the majority of our local organiza-
tions have been thinking almost exclusively of local newspapers, and have
devoted almost all their activities to these. This is unsound — the very
opposite should be the case. The majority of the local organizations should
think principally of the publication of an all- Russian newspaper, and
* That is why even examples of exceptionally good local newspapers fully
confirm our point of view. For example, Yuzhny Rabochy (Southern Worker) is
an excellent newspaper, and is altogether free from instability of principles.
But it has been unable to provide what it desired for the local movement, owing
to the infrequency of its publication and to extensive police raids. What our
Party most urgently requires, at the present time, viz., the presentation of the
fundamental questions of the movement and wide political agitation, the local
newspaper has been unable to satisfy. And the material it has published exception-
ally well, like the articles about the mine owners' congress, unemployment, etc.,
was not strictly local material, it was required for the whole of Russia, and not
for the South alone. No articles like that have appeared in any of our Social-
Democratic newspapers.
864 V. I. LENIN
devote their activities principally to it. Until this is done, we shall never
be able to establish a single newspaper capable, to any degree, of serving
the movement with all-sided press agitation. When it is done, however,
normal relations between the necessary central newspapers and the
necessary local newspapers will be established automatically.
It would seem at first sight that the conclusion drawn concerning
the necessity for transferring the weight of effort from local work to
all- Russian work does not apply to the sphere of the specifically econom-
ic struggle. In this struggle, the immediate enemy of the workers is
the individual employer or group of employers, who are not bound by
any organization having even the remotest resemblance to the purely
militant, strictly centralized organization of the Russian government
which is guided even in its minutest details by a single will, and which
is our immediate enemy in the political struggle.
But that is not the case. As we have already pointed out many times,
the economic struggle is a trade struggle, and for that reason it requires
that the workers be organized according to trade and not only according
to their place of employment. And this organization by trade becomes
all the more imperatively necessary, the more rapidly our employers
organize in all sorts of companies and syndicates. Our state of diffusion
and our primitiveness hinder this work of organization, and in order
that this work may be carried out we must have a single, all-Russian
organization of revolutionaries capable of undertaking the leadership
of the all- Russian trade unions. We have already described above the
type of organization that is desired for this purpose, and now we shall
add just a few words about thi& in connection with the question of our
press.
Hardly anyone will doubt the necessity for every Social-Democratic
newspaper having a special section devoted to the trade union (economic)
struggle. But the growth of the trade union movement compels us to
think also about the trade union press. It seems to us, however, that with
rare exceptions it is not much use thinking of trade union newspapers
in Russia at the present time; that would be a luxury, and in many
places we cannot even obtain our daily bread. The form of trade union press
that would suit the conditions of our illegal work and is already called
for at the present time is the trade union pamphlet. In these pamphlets,
legal* and illegal material should be collected and grouped systemati-
* Legal material is particularly important in this connection, but we have
lagged behind very much in our ability systematically to collect and utili2e it.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that legal material alone would be suffi-
cient for a trade union pamphlet, whereas illegal material alone would not be
sufficient. In illegal material collected from workers on questions like those dealt
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 255
cally, on conditions of labour in a given trade, on the various conditions
prevailing in the various parts of Russia, on the principal demands
advanced by the workers in a given trade, on the defects of the laws in
relation to that trade, on the outstanding cases of workers9 economic
struggle in this trade, on the rudiments, the present state and the require-
ments of their trade union organizations, etc. Such pamphlets would,
in the first place, relieve our Social-Democratic press of a mass of trade
details that interest only the workers employed in the given trade; second-
ly, they would record the results of our experience in the trade union
struggle, would preserve the material collected — which is now literally
lost in a mass of leaflets and fragmentary correspondence — and would
generalize this material. Thirdly, they could serve as material for the
guidance of agitators, because conditions of labour change relatively
slowly and the principal demands of the workers in a given trade hardly
ever change (see, for example, the demands advanced by the weavers
in the Moscow district in 1885 and in the St. Petersburg district in 1896);
a compilation of these demands and needs might serve for years as an
excellent handbook for agitators on economic questions in backward
localities or among the backward strata of the workers. Examples of
successful strikes, information about the higher standard of living, about
better conditions of labour in one district, would encourage the workers
in other districts to take up the fight again and again. Fourthly, having
made a start in generalizing the trade union struggle, and having in this
way strengthened the contacts between the Russian trade union move-
ment and Socialism, the Social-Democrats would at the same time see
to it that our trade union work did not take up either too small or too
large a part of our general Social-Democratic work. A local organization
that is cut off from the organizations in other towns finds it very difficult,
and sometimes almost impossible, to maintain a correct sense of propor-
with in the publications of Rabochaya Mysl, we waste a lot of the efforts of revo-
lutionaries (whose place in this work could very easily be taken by legal workers),
and yet we never obtain good material because a worker who knows only a single
department of a large factory, who knows the economic results but not the general
conditions and standards of his work, cannot acquire the knowledge which is
possessed by the office staff of a factory, by inspectors, doctors, etc., and which
is scattered in petty newspaper correspondence, and in special, industrial, medical,
Zemstvo and other publications.
I very distinctly remember my "first experiment," which I would never like
to repeat. I spent many weeks "examining" a work ing man who came to visit me,
about the conditions prevailing in the enormous factory at which he was employed.
True, after great effort, I managed to obtain material for a description (of just
one single factory I), but at the end of the interview the workingman wiped the
sweat from his brow, and said to me smilingly: "I would rather work overtime
than reply to your questions I"
The more energetically we carry on our revolutionary struggle, the more the
government will be compelled to legalize a part of the "trade union" work, and
by that relieve us of part of our burden.
256 V. I. LENIN
tion (and the example of Rabochaya Mysl shows what a monstrous exag-
geration is sometimes made in the direction of trade unionism). But
an all- Russian organization of revolutionaries that stands undeviatingly
on the basis qf Marxism, that leads the whole of the political struggle
and possesses a staff of professional agitators, will never find it difficult
to determine the proper proportion.
V
THE "PLAN" FOR AN ALL- RUSSIAN POLITICAL NEWSPAPER
"The most serious blunder Iskra committed in this connection,"
writes B. Krichevsky (Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10, p. 30) — accusing us of
betraying a tendency to "convert theory into a lifeless doctrine by iso-
lating it from practice" — "was in promoting its 'plan* for a general
Party organization" (i.e., the article entitled "Where To Begin?") and
Martynov echoes this idea by declaring that "Iskra's tendency to belittle
the forward march of the drab every-day struggle in comparison with the
propaganda of brilliant and complete ideas . . . was crowned by the
plan for the organization of a party that it advances in an article in No.
4, entitled 'Where To Begin?'" (Ibid., p. 61.) Finally, L. Nadezhdin
recently joined in the chorus of indignation against this "plan" (the
quotation marks were meant to express sarcasm). In a pamphlet we have
just received written by him, entitled The Eve of the Revolution (pub-
lished by the Revolutionary Socialist group, Svoboda, whose acquaintance
we have already made), he declares : "To speak now of an organization linked
up with an all- Russian newspaper means propagating armchair ideas and
armchair work" (p. 126), that it is a manifestation of "literariness," etc.
It does not surprise us that our terrorist agrees with the champions of
the "forward march of the drab every-day struggle," because we have
already traced the roots of this intimacy between them in the chapters
on politics and organization. But we must here draw attention to the
fact that L. Nadezhdin is the only one who has conscientiously tried to
understand the ideas expressed in an article he disliked, and has made
an attempt to reply to the point, whereas Rabocheye Dyelo has said nothing
that is material to the subject, but has only tried to confuse the question
by a whole series of indecent, demagogic sallies. Unpleasant though the
task may be, we must first spend some time in cleaning this Augean stable. *
* Sub-section "A. Who Was Offended by the Article 'Where To Begin?'" is
omitted in the present edition since it deals exclusively with the polemic with
the Rabocheye Dyelo and the Bund anent the Islcra's attempt to "command," and
so forth. This sub-section, incidentally, speaks of the fact that it was the Bund
itself that (in 1898-99) invited the members of the Iskra to renew the Central
Organ of the Party and to organize a "literary laboratory."
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 267
B. Can a Newspaper Be a Collective Organizer?
The main points in the article "Where To Begin?" deal precisely with
this question, and reply to it in the affirmative. As far as we know, the only
attempt to examine this question and to prove that it must be answered
in the negative was made by L. Nadezhdin, whose argument we reproduce
in full:
"... The manner in which the question of the need for an all-
Russian newspaper is presented in Iskra, No. 4, pleases us very
much, but we cannot agree that such a presentation fits in with
the title of the article 'Where To Begin?' Undoubtedly this is an
extremely important matter, but neither a newspaper, nor a whole
series of popular leaflets, nor a whole mountain of manifestos,
can serve as the basis for a militant organization in revolutionary
times. We must set to work to build up strong political organiza-
tions in the localities. We lack such organizations; we have been
carrying on our work mainly among intelligent workers, while
the masses have been engaged almost exclusively in the economic
struggle. // we do not build up strong political organizations locally,
what will be the use of even an excellently organized all-Russian
newspaper? It will be a burning bush, burning without being con-
sumed, and inflaming nobody. Iskra thinks that as a matter of fact
people will gather around it, and they will organize. But they will
find it more interesting to gather and organize around something more
concretel This something more concrete may be the extensive publi-
cation of local newspapers, the immediate setting to work to rally
the forces of labour for demonstrations, constant work by local
organizations among the unemployed (regularly distribute pam-
phlets and leaflets among them, convene meetings for them, call upon
them to resist the government, etc.). We must organize live polit-
ical work in the localities, and when the time comes to amalgamate
on this real basis, it will not be an artificial, a paper amalgama-
tion; it will not be by means of newspapers that such an amalga-
mation of local work into an all- Russian cause will be achieved!"
(The Eve of the Revolution, p. 54.)
We have emphasized the passages in this eloquent tirade which most
strikingly illustrate the author's incorrect judgment of our plan, and the
incorrectness of the point of view, generally, that he opposes to that of
Iskra. Unless we build up strong political organizations in the localities —
even an excellently organized all-Russian newspaper will be of no avail.
Absolutely true. But the whole point is that there is no other way of t r a in-
ing strong political organizations except through the medium of an
all-Rusian newspaper. The author missed the most important state-
ment Iskra made fee/ore it proceeded to explain its "plan": that it was ncc.
17-685
258 V. I. LENIN
ccssary "to call for the establishment of a revolutionary organization,
capable of combining all the forces and of leading the movement not only
in name but in deed, i.e., an organization that mil be ready at any moment
to support every protest and every outbreak, and to utilize these for the
purpose of increasing and strengthening the military forces required for
decisive battle/' After the February and March events, everyone will
agree with* this in principle, continues Iskra, but we do not need a solu-
tion of this problem in principle; what we need is a practical solution of it;
we must immediately bring forward a definite plan of construction in
order that everyone may set to work to build from every side. And now we
are again being dragged away from a practical solution towards something
that is correct in principle, indisputable and great, but absolutely inad-
equate and absolutely incomprehensible to the broad masses of workers,
namely, to "build up strong political organizations!" This is not the
point that is now being discussed, most worthy author! The point is, how
to train and what training it should be!
It is not true to say that "we have been carrying on our work mainly
among intelligent workers, while the masses have been engaged almost
exclusively in the economic struggle." Presented in such a form, this
postulate goes wrong on the point which Svoboda always goes wrong on
and which is radically wrong, and that is, it sets up the intelligent work-
ers in contrast to the "masses." Even the intelligent workers have been
"engaged almost exclusively in the economic struggle" during the past
few years. Moreover, the masses will never learn to conduct the political
struggle until we help to train leaders for this struggle, both from among
the intelligent workers and from among the intellectuals; and such lead-
ers can be trained solely by systematic and every-day appreciation
of all aspects of our political Ijfe, of all attempts at protest and struggle
on the part of various classes and on various grounds. Therefore, to talk
about "building up political organizations" and at the same time to
contrast a "paper organization" of a political newspaper to "live politic-
al work in the localities" is simply ridiculous! Why, Iskra has adapted
its "plan" for a newspaper to the "plan" for creating a "militant prepared-
ness" to support the unemployed movement, peasant revolts, discon-
tent among the Zemstvo-ists, "popular indignation against the reckless
tsarist bashi-bazouks," etc. Everyone who is at all acquainted with the
movement knows perfectly well that the majority of local organizations
never even dream of these things, that many of the prospects of "live polit-
ical work" here indicated have never been realized by a single organiza-
tion, that the attempt to call attention to the growth of discontent and
protest among the Zemstvo intelligentsia rouses feelings of consterna-
tion and amazement in Nadezhdin ("Good Lord, is this newspaper intend-
ed for Zemstvo-ists?" — Kanun, p. 129), among the Economists (letter
to Iskra, No. 12) and among many of the practical workers. Under these
circumstances, it is possible to "begin" only by stirring up people to
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 269
think about all these things, by stirring them up to summarize and gener-
alize all the signs of ferment and active struggle. "Live political work"
can be begun in our time, when Social-Democratic tasks are being degrad-
ed, exclusively by means of live political agitation, which is impossible
unless we have a frequently issued and properly distributed all-Russian
newspaper.
Those who regard Iskra'a "plan" as a manifestation of "literariness"
have totally failed to understand the substance of the plan, and imagine
that what is suggested as the most suitable means for the present time
is the ultimate goal. These people have not taken the trouble to study
the two comparisons that were drawn to illustrate the plan proposed.
Iskra wrote: the publication of an all- Russian political newspaper must be
the main line that must guide us in our work of unswervingly developing,
deepening and expanding this organization (i.e., a revolutionary organi-
zation always prepared to support every protest and every outbreak).
Pray tell me: when bricklayers lay bricks in various parts of an enor-
mous structure the like of which has never been seen before, is it "paper"
work to use a line to help them find the correct place in which to put each
brick, to indicate to them the ultimate purpose of the work as a whole,
to enable them to use not only every brick but even every piece of brick
which, joining with the bricks placed before and after it, forms a complete
and all-embracing line? and are we not now passing through a period in
our Party life when we have bricks and bricklayers, but lack the guiding
line which all could see and follow? Let them shout that in stretching
out the line, we desire to command. Had we desired to command, gentle-
men, we would have written on the title page, not "/s&ra, No. 1" but
"Rabochaya Gazeta, No. 3," as we were invited to do by a number of
comrades, and as we had a perfect right to do. But we did not do that. We
wished to have our hands free to conduct an irreconcilable struggle against
all pseudo-Social-Democrats; we wanted our line, if properly laid, to be
respected because it was correct, and not because it was carried out by
an official organ.
"The question of combining local activity in central organs runs
in a vicious circle," L. Nadezhdin tells us pedantically, "for this re-
quires homogeneous elements, and this homogeneity can be created
only by something that combines; but this combining element may be
the product of strong local organizations which at the present time
are not distinguished for their homogeneity."
This truism is as hoary and indisputable as the one that says we must
build up strong political organizations. And it is equally barren. Eve>y
question "runs in a vicious circle" because the whole of political life is
an endless chain consisting of an infinite number of links. The whole art
of politics lies in finding the link that is least likely to be torn out of our
hands, the one that is most important at the given moment, the one that
17*
260 V. I. LENIN
guarantees the command of the whole chain, and having found it,
in clinging to that link as tightly as possible. If we possessed a staff
of experienced bricklayers, who had learned to work so well together
that they could dispense with a guiding line and could place their
bricks exactly where they were required without one (and, speaking
abstractly, this is by no means impossible), then perhaps we might seize
upon some other link. But the unfortunate thing is that we have no
experienced bricklayers trained to teamwork yet, that bricks are often
laid where they are not needed at all, that they are not laid according
to the general line, and are so scattered about that the enemy can
shatter the structure as if it were made not of bricks but of sand.
Here is the other comparison:
"A paper is not merely a collective propagandist and collective
agitator, it is also a collective organizer. In this respect it can be
compared 1o the scaffolding erected around a building in construc-
tion; it marks the contours of the structure and facilitates commun-
ication between the builders, permitting them to distribute the
work and to view the common results achieved by their organized
labour."*
Does this sound anything like the attempt of an armchair author to
exaggerate his role? The scaffolding put up around a building is not required
at all for habitation, it is made of the cheapest material, it is only
put up temporarily, and as soon as the shell of the structure is completed,
is scrapped for firewood. As for the building up of revolutionary organ-
izations, experience shows that sometimes they may be built without
scaffolding — take the 'seventies for example. But at the present time we
cannot imagine that the building we require can be put up without
scaffolding.
Nadezhdin disagrees with this, and says: "Iskra thinks that as a mat-
ter of fact people will gather around it, and they will organize. But they
will find it more interesting to gather and organize around something more
concre'el" Sol So! "They will find it more interesting to gather around
something more concrete. ..." There is a Russian proverb which says:
"Don't spit into the well, you may want to drink out of it." But there
are people who do not object to drinking from a well which has been
spat into. What despicable things our magnificent, legal "critics of Marx-
ism" and illegal admirers of Rabochaya Mysl have said in the name of
this — something more concretel See how restricted our movement is by
our own narrowness, lack of initiative and hesitation, and yet this is justi-
fied by the traditional argument about finding it "more interesting to
* Martynov, quoting the first sentence in this passage in Rabocheye Dyelo (No.
10, p. 62), left out the second sentence, as if desiring to emphasize by that either
hit unwillingness to discuss the essentials of the question, or his incapability of
understanding it.
WHAT 18 TO BE DONE? 261
gather around something more concrete!" And Nadezhdin — who regards
himself as being particularly sensitive to "life," who so severely condemns
"armchair" authors, who (with pretensions to being witty) charges Iskra
with a weakness for seeing Economism everywhere, and who imagines
that he stands far above this discrimination between the "orthodox" and
the "critics" — fails to see that with this sort of argument he is playing
into the hands of the very narrowness against which he is so indignant and
that he is drinking from a well that has actually been spat into! The sin-
cerest indignation against narrowness, the most passionate desire to raise
those who worship this narrowness from their knees, is insufficient if the
indignant one is swept along without sail or rudder as "spontaneously"
as the revolutionaries of the 'seventies, and clutches at such things as
"excitative terror," "agrarian terror," "sounding the tocsin," etc. Glance
at this something "more concrete" around which he thinks it will be
"more interesting" to gather and organize: 1) local newspapers; 2) pre-
parations for demonstrations; 3) work among the unemployed. It will
be seen at the very first glance that all these have been seized upon at
random in order to be able to say something, for however we may regard
them, it would be absurd to see in them anything especially adapted
for the purpose of "gathering and organizing." This very Nadezhdin a
few pages further on says: "It is time we simply stated the fact that extreme-
ly petty work is being carried on in the localities, the committees are
not doing a tenth of what they could do ... the combining centres that
we have at the present time are a pure fiction, they represent a sort of
revolutionary bureaucracy, the members of which mutually appoint each
other to the post of generals; and so it will continue until strong local
organizations grow up." These remarks, while exaggerating the posi-
tion somewhat, express many a bitter truth, but cannot Nadezhdin see
the connection between the petty work carried on in the localities and the
narrow outlook of the Party workers, the narrow scope of their activi-
ties, which is inevitable in view of the lack of training of the Party work-
ers isolated in their local organizations? Has he, like the author of the
article on organization published in Svoboda, forgotten how the adoption
of a broad local press (in 1898) was acompanied by a very strong inten-
sification of Economism and "primitive methods"? Even if a broad local
press could be established at all satisfactorily (and we have shown above
that it is impossible save in very exceptional cases) — even then the local
organs could not "gather and organize" all the revolutionary forces for
a general attack upon the autocracy and for the leadership of a united
struggle. Do not forget that we are here discussing only the "gathering,"
the organizing significance of a newspaper, and we could put to Nadezh-
din, who defends diffuseness, the very question that he himself has
already put ironically: "Has someone left us a legacy of 200,000 revo-
lutionary organizers?" Furthermore, "preparations for demonstrations"
cannot be opposed to Iskra 'a plan for the very reason that this plan includes
262 V. I. LENIN
the organization of the widest possible demonstrations as one of its
aims; the point under discussion is the selection of the practical means.
On this point also Nadezhdin has become confused and has lost sight of
the fact that only already "gathered and organized" forces can "prepare
for" demonstrations (which hitherto, in the overwhelming majority of
cases, have taken place quite spontaneously) and we lack precisely
the ability to gather and organize. "Work among the unemployed." Again
•'the same confusion, for this too represents one of the military operations
of mobilized forces and not a plan to mobilize the forces. The extent to
which Nadezhdin underestimates the harm caused by our diffuseness, by
our lack of "200,000 organizers," can be seen from the following: many
(including Nadezhdin) have reproached Iskra with the paucity of the
news it gives about unemployment and with the casual nature of the cor-
respondence it publishes about the most common affairs of rural life.
The reproach is justified, but Iskra is "guilty without sin." We strive
to "stretch a line" even through the countryside, but there are almost
no bricklayers there, and we are obliged to encourage everyone to send
us information concerning even the most common facts, in the hope
that this will increase the number of our contributors in this field and
will ultimately train us all to select the really most outstanding facts.
But the material on which we can train is so scanty that unless we gener-
alize it for the whole of Russia we shall have very little to train on at
all. No doubt one who possesses at least as much capability as an agi-
tator, and as much knowledge of the life of the vagrant as apparently
Nadezhdin does, could render priceless service to the movement by carry-
ing on agitation among the unemployed — but such a one would be simply
burying his talents if he failed to inform all Russian comrades of every
step he took in his work, in order that others, who, in the mass, as yet
lack the ability to undertake new kinds of work, might learn from his
example.
Absolutely everybody now talks about the importance of unity, about
the necessity for "gathering and organizing," but in the majority of cases
what is lacking is a definite idea of where to begin and how to bring about
this unification. Probably everyone will agree that if we "unite," say, the
district circles in a given city, it will be necessary to have for this purpose
common institutions, i.e., not merely a common title of "Union" but
genuinely common work, exchange of material, experience and forces,
distribution of functions, not only in the given districts but in a whole
city, according to special tasks. Everyone will agree that a big secret
apparatus will not pay its way (if one may employ a commercial expres-
sion) "with the resources" (in material and man power, of course) of
a single district, and that a single district will not provide sufficient"
scope for a specialist to develop his talents. But the same thing applies
to the unification of a number of cities, because even such a field, like
a single locality, mil prove, and has already proved in the history of our
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 268
Social-Democratic movement, to be too restricted: we have already proved
this above, in connection with political agitation and organization-
al work. We must first and foremost widen the field, establish real con-
tacts between the cities on the basis of regular, common work*, for diffuse-
ness restricts the activities of our people who are "stuck in a hole" (to
use the expression employed by a correspondent to Iskrd), not knowing
what is happening in the world; they have no one to learn from, do not
know how to acquire experience or satisfy their desire to engage in broad
activities. And I continue to insist that we can start establishing real
contacts only with the aid of a common newspaper, as a single, regular,
all- Russian enterprise, which will summarize the results of all the di-
verse forms of activity and thereby stimulate our people to march forward
untiringly along all the innumerable paths which lead to revolution in
the same way as all roads lead to Rome. If we do not want unity in name
only, we must arrange for every local circle immediately to assign, say
a fourth of its forces to active work for the common cause, and the news-
paper will immediately convey to them the general design, dimensions
and character of this cause, will indicate to them precisely the most
serious defects of all- Russian activity, where agitation is lacking and
where contacts are weak, and point out which small wheels in the great
general mechanism could be repaired or replaced by better ones. A circle
that has not yet commenced to work, which is only just seeking work,
could then start, not like a craftsman in a small separate workshop un-
aware of the development that has taken place in "industry" before him,
or of the methods of production prevailing in industry, but as a partici-
pant in an extensive enterprise that reflects the whole general revolu-
tionary attack upon the autocracy. And the more perfect the finish
of each little wheel, the larger the number of detail workers working
for the common cause, the closer will our network become and the
less consternation will inevitable police raids call forth in the general
ranks.
The mere function of distributing a newspaper will help to establish
real contacts (that is, if it is a newspaper worthy of the name, i.e., if
it is issued regularly, not once a month like a magazine, but four times
a month). At the present time, communication between cities on revolu-
tionary business is an extreme rarity, and at all events the exception rath-
er than the rule. If we had a newspaper, however, such communication
would become the rule and would secure, not only the distribution of the
newspaper, of course, but also (and what is more important) an interchange
of experience, of material, of forces and of resources. The scope of organ-
izational work would immediately become ever so much wider and the
success of a single locality would serve as a standing encouragement to
further perfection and a desire to utilize the experience gained by com-
rades working in other parts of the country. Local work would become
far richer and more varied than it is now: political and economic expo-
264 V. I. LENIN
surcs gathered from all over Russia would provide mental food for the
workers of all trades and in all stages of development, would provide ma-
terial and occasion for talks and readings on the most diverse subjects,
which indeed will be suggested by hints in the legal press, by conversa-
tions in society and by "shamefaced" government communications.
Every outbreak, every demonstration, would be weighed and discussed
in all its aspects all over Russia; it would stimulate a desire to catch up
with the rest, a desire to excel (we Socialists do not by any means reject
all rivalry or all "competition"!) and consciously to prepare for that
which at first appeared to spring up spontaneously, a desire to take advan-
tage of the favourable conditions in a given district or at a given moment
for modifying the plan of attack, etc. At the same time, this revival
of local work would render superfluous that desperate, "convulsive"
exertion of all efforts and the risking of all men which every single dem-
onstration or the publication of every single number of a local newspa-
per now entails. In the first place the police would find it much more dif-
ficult to dig down to the "roots" because they would not know in what
district to seek for them. Secondly, regular common work would train
our people to regulate the force of a given attack in accordance with the
strength of the forces of the given local detachment of the army (at the
present time no one ever thinks of doing that, because in nine cases out
of ten these attacks occur spontaneously), and would facilitate the "trans-
port" from one place to another, not only of literature, but also of
revolutionary forces.
In a great many cases, these forces at the present time shed their blood
in the cause of restricted local work, but under the circumstances we are
discussing, occasion would constantly arise for transferring a capable
agitator or organizer from one end of the country to another. Beginning
with short journeys on Party business at the Party's expense, our people
would become accustomed to being maintained by the Party, would
become professional revolutionaries and would train themselves to become
real political leaders.
And if indeed we succeeded in reaching a point when all, or at least
a considerable majority, of the local committees, local groups and cir-
cles actively took up work for the common cause we could, in the not
distant future, establish a daily newspaper that would be regularly distrib-
uted in tens of thousands of copies over the whole of Russia. This news-
paper would become a part of an enormous pair of smith's bellows that
would blow every spark of class struggle and popular indignation into a
general conflagration. Around what is in itself a very innocent and very
small, but a regular and common cause, in the full sense of the word, an
army of tried warriors would systematically gather and receive their
training. On the ladders and scaffolding of this general organizational
structure there would soon ascend Social-Democratic Zhelyabovs from
among our revolutionaries and Russian Bebels from among our workers
WHAT IS TO DE DONE? 265
who would take their place at the head of the mobilized army and rouse
the whole people to settle accounts with the shame and the curse of
Russia.
That is what we should dream of.
"We should dream!" I wrote these words and became alarmed. I imag-
ined myself sitting at a "unity congress" and opposite me were the
editors and contributors of Sabocheye Dyelo. Comrade Martynov rises and,
turning to me, says threateningly: "Permit me to ask you, has an autonom-
ous editorial board the right to dream without first obtaining permis-
sion of the Party committee?" He is followed by Comrade Krichevsky who
(philosophically deepening Comrade Martynov who had long ago deep-
ened Comrade Plekhanov) continues in the same strain even more threat-
eningly: "I go further. I ask, has a Marxist any right at all to dream,
knowing that according to Marx mankind always sets itself only such
tasks as it can solve and that tactics is a process of growth of Party tasks,
which grow with the Party?"
The very thought of these menacing questions sends a cold shiver
down my back and makes me wish for nothing but a place to hide myself.
I shall try to hide myself behind the back of Pisarev.*
"There are differences and differences," wrote Pisarev concerning
the question of the difference between dreams and reality. "My
dream may run ahead of the natural progress of events or may fly off
at a tangent in a direction in which no natural progress of events
will ever proceed. In the first case my dream will not cause any
harm; it may even support and strengthen the efforts of toiling
humanity. . . . There is nothing in such dreams that would distort
or paralyse labour power. On the contrary, if man were complete-
ly deprived of the ability to dream in this way, if he could never
run ahead and mentally conceive, in an entire and completed picture,
the results of the work he is only ju?t commencing, then I cannot
imagine what stimulus there would be to induce man to under-
take and complete extensive and fatiguing work in the sphere
of art, science and practical work. . . . Divergence between dreams
and reality causes no harm if only the person dreaming believes
seriously in his dream, if he attentively observes life, compares
his observations with the airy castles he builds and if, generally
speaking, he works conscientiously for the achievement of his
phantasies. If there is some connection between dreams and life
then all is well."
* Famous literary critic of the sixties of the last century who greatly influenced
the Russian radical intelligentsia. — Ed.
266 V. I. LENIN
Now of this kind of dreaming there is unfortunately too little in our
movement. And those most responsible for this are the people who boast
of their sober views, their "closeness" to the "concrete," i.e., the
representatives of legal criticism and of illegal khvostism.
, C. What Type of Organization Do We Require?
From what has been said the reader will understand that our "tactics-
as-a-plan" consists of rejecting an immediate call for attack, in demand-
ing "a regular siege of the enemy fortress," or in other words, in demand-
ing that all efforts be directed towards gathering, organizing and mobil-
izing permanent troops. When we ridiculed Rdbocheye Dyelo for its
leap from Economism to shouting for an attack (for which it clamoured
in April 1901, in Listok Rabochevo Dyela, No. 6), it of course hurled accu-
sations against us of being "doctrinaire," of failing to understand our
revolutionary duty, of calling for caution, etc. Of course we were not in
the least surprised to hear these accusations coming from those who to-
tally lack principles and who evade all arguments by references to a pro-
found "tactics-as-a-process," any more than we were surprised by the fact
that these accusations were repeated by Nadezhdin who in general
has a supreme contempt for durable programs and the fundamentals of
tactics.
It is said that history never repeats itself. But Nadezhdin is exerting
every effort to cause it to repeat itself and he zealously imitates Tkachev*
in strongly condemning "revolutionary culturism," in shouting about
"sounding the tocsin," about a special "eve of the revolution point of
view," etc. Apparently, he has forgotten the well-known epigram which
says: if an original historical event represents a tragedy, the copy of it
is only a farce. The attempt to seize power, after the ground for the at-
tempt had been prepared by the preaching of Tkachev and carried out by
means of the "terrifying" terror which did really terrify, was majestic, **
but the "excitative" terror of a little Tkachev is simply ridiculous and
is particularly ridiculous when it is supplemented by the idea of an
organization of average workers.
"If Iskra would only emerge from its sphere of literariness,"
wrote Nadezhdin, "it would realize that these [the workingman's
letter to Iskra, No. 7, etc.] are symptoms of the fact that soon, very
soon the 'attack* will commence, and to speak now [sic\] of an
* A Russian revolutionary writer of the seventies and eighties of
the last century, publisher of the newspaper Nabat (The Tocsin), in Geneva.
— Ed.
** Lenin refers to the attempt of the Narodnaya Volya-ites to seize power.
See article "The Tasks of Russian Social-Democrats." — Ed.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 267
organization linked up with an all-Russian newspaper means pro»
pagating armchair ideas and armchair work."
What unimaginable confusion this is: on the one hand excitative ter-
ror and an "organization of average workers" accompanied by the opin-
ion that it is "more interesting" to gather around something "more
concrete" like a local newspaper — and on the other hand, to talk "now"
about an all- Russian organization means giving utterance to armchair
thoughts, or, to speak more frankly and simply, "now" is already too
late! But what about the "extensive organization of local newspapers" —
is it not too late for that, my dear L. Nadezhdin? And compare this with
Iskra's point of view and tactics: excitative terror — is nonsense; to talk
about an organization of average workers and about the extensive organi-
zation of local newspapers means opening the door wide for Economism.
We must speak about a single all- Russian organization of revolutionaries,
and it will never be too late to talk about that until the real, and not the
paper, attack commences.
"Yes, as far as our situation in regard to organization is con-
cerned, it is far from brilliant," continues Nadezhdin. "Yes, Iskra is
absolutely right when it says that the mass of our military forces
consists of volunteers and insurgents. . . . You do very well in
thus soberly presenting the state of our forces. But why in doing so do
you forget that the crowd is not ours, and, consequently, it will not
ask us when to commence military operations, it will simply go
and 'rebel.' . . . When the crowd itself breaks out with its elemental
destructive force it may overwhelm and crush the 'regular troops'
among whom we had been preparing all the time to introduce ex-
tremely systematic organization, but had never managed to do so."
(Our italics.)
Astonishing logic! Precisely because the "crowd is not ours," it is stu-
pid and reprehensible to call for an "attack" this very minute, because
an attack must be made by regular troops and not by a spontaneous out-
burst of the crowd. It is precisely because the crowd may overwhelm and
crush the regular troops that we must without fail "manage to keep up"
with the spontaneous rise of the masses in our work of "introducing ex-
tremely systematic organization" among the regular troops, for the more
we "manage" to introduce organization the more probable will it be that
the regular troops will not be overwhelmed by the crowd, but will take
their place at the head of the crowd. Nadezhdin is confused because he
imagines that these systematically organized troops are engaged in
something that isolates them from the crowd, when as a matter of fact
they are engaged exclusively in all-sided and all-embracing political
agitation, i.e., precisely in work that brings them into closer proximity to,
and merges the elemental destructive force of the crowd with, the con-
268 V. I. LENIN
scious destructive force of the organization of revolutionaries. You,
gentlemen, merely wish to throw the blame for your sins on the shoulders
of others. For it is precisely the Svoboda group that includes terror in
its program and by that calls for an organization of terrorists, and such
an organization would really prevent our troops from coming into prox-
imity to the crowd which, unfortunately, is still not ours, and which,
unfortunately, does not yet ask us, or rarely asks us when and how to
commence military operations.
"We will miss the revolution itself," continues Nadezhdin in his effort
to scare Iskra, "in the same way as we missed recent events which came
at us like a bolt from the blue." This sentence together with the one quot-
ed above clearly demonstrates the absurdity of the "eve of the revolu-
tion point of view" invented by Svoboda.* To speak frankly, this special
"point of view" amounts to this: it is too late "now," to discuss and pre-
pare. If that is the case, oh most worthy opponent of "literariness," what
was the use of writing a pamphlet of 132 pages on "questions of theory**
and tactics"? Don't you think it would have been more becoming for
the "eve of the revolution point of view" to have issued 132,000 leaflets
containing the brief call: "Kill them!"?
Those who place national political agitation at the cornerstone of
their program, their tactics and their organizational work as Iskra does,
stand the least risk of missing the revolution. The people who were en-
gaged over the whole of Russia in weaving a network of organizations to
be linked up with an all-Russian newspaper not only did not miss the
spring events but, on the contrary, they enabled us to foretell them.
Nor did they miss the demonstrations that were described in Iskra,
Nos. 13 and 14; on the contrary, they took part in those demonstrations,
clearly appreciating their duty to come to the aid of the spontaneously ris-
ing crowd and, at the same time, through the medium of the newspaper,
they helped all the comrades in Russia to become more closely acquaint -
* The Eve of the Revolution, p. 62.
** In his Reviev of Questions oj Theory, L. Nadezhdin made almost no contri-
bution whatever to the discussion of questions of theory apart perhaps from the
following passage which appears to be a very peculiar one from the "eve of the
revolution point of view": "Bernsteinism, on the whole, is losing its acutencss
for us at the present moment, as also is the question as to whether Mr. Adamovich
[V. V. Vorovsky. — Ed.] has proved that Mr. Struve has already deserved distinc-
tion, or on the contrary whether Mr. Struve will refute Mr. Adamovich and will re-
fuse to resign — it really makes no difference, because the hour of the revolution has
struck." (P. 110.) One can hardly imagine a more striking illustration of L. Na-
dezhdin's infinite disregard for theory. We have proclaimed "the eve of the revo-
lution," therefore, "it really makes no difference" whether the orthodox Marxists
will succeed in driving the critics from their positions or not!! And our wiseacre
fails to see that it is precisely in the time of revolution that we stand in need of
the results of our theoretical combats with the critics in order to be able resolutely
to combat their practical positions 1
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 269
ed with these demonstrations and to utilize their experience. And if
they live they will not miss the revolution which' first and foremost will
demand of us experience in agitation, ability to support (in a Social-
Democratic manner) every protest, ability to direct the spontaneous
movement, and to safeguard it from the mistakes of friends and the traps
of enemies 1
This brings us to the final argument that compels us to insist particu-
larly upon a plan of organization that shall be centred around an all-
Russian newspaper, to be brought about by means of joint work for a
common newspaper. Only such a state of organization will secure for
the Social-Democratic militant organization the necessary flexibility,
i.e.9 the ability to adapt itself immediately to the most diverse and rap-
idly changing conditions of struggle, the ability, "on the one hand, to
avoid open battle against the overwhelming and concentrated forces of
the enemy, and, on the other, to take advantage of the clumsiness of the
enemy and attack him at a time and place he least expects attack."* It
would be a grievous error indeed to build up the Party organization in
the expectation only of outbreaks and street fighting, or only upon the
"forward march of the drab every-day struggle." We must always carry
on our every-day work and always be prepared for everything, because
very frequently it is almost impossible to foresee when periods of out-
breaks will give way to periods of calm. And even in those cases when
it is possible to do so, it will not be possible to utilize this foresight for
the purpose of reconstructing our organization, because in an autocratic
country these changes take place with astonishing rapidity and are some-
times due merely to a single night raid by the tsarist janizaries. And
the revolution itself must not by any means be regarded as a single act
(as Nadezhdin apparently imagines) but as a series of more or less power-
ful outbreaks rapidly alternating with more or less intense calm. For
that reason, the principal content of the activity of our Party organiza-
tion, the focus of this activity, should be to carry on work that is possible
and necessary in the period of the most powerful outbreaks as well as
in the period of complete calm, that is to say, work of political agitation
* lekra, No. 4, "Where To Begin?" "Revolutionary culturists, who do not
accept the eve of the revolution point of view, are not in the least perturbed by
the prospect of working for a long period of time," writes Nadezhdin. (P. 62.)
To this we shall remark: unless we are able to devise political tactics and an
organizational plan based precisely upon calculations for work over a long period
of time and at the same time, in the very process of this work, ensure our Party's
readiness to be at its post and fulfil its duty at the very first, even unexpected,
call, as soon as the progress of events becomes accelerated, we shall prove to be
but miserable political adventurers. Only Nadezhdin, who began to describe
himself as a Social-Democrat only yesterday, can forget that the aim of Social-
Democracy is radically *o transform the conditions of life of the whole of humanity
and that for that reason it is not permissible for Social-Democrats to be "perturbed"
by the question of the duration of the work.
270 V. I. LENIN
linked up over the whole of Russia, that will enlighten all aspects of
life and will be carried on among the broadest possible strata of the
masses. But this work cannot possibly be carried on in contemporary Russia
without an all-Russian newspaper, issued very frequently. An organiza-
tion that springs up spontaneously around this newspaper, an organiza-
tion of collaborators of this paper (collaborators in the broad sense of
the word, i.e., all those working for it) will be ready for everything, from
protecting the honour, the prestige and continuity of the Party in periods
of acute revolutionary "depression," to preparing for, fixing the t me for
and carrying out the national armed insurrection.
Indeed, picture to yourselves a very ordinary occurrence with us —
the complete discovery and arrest of our organization in one or several
localities. In view of the fact that all the local organizations lack a single,
common regular task, such raids frequently result in the interruption
of our work for many months. If, however, all the local organizations
had one common task, then, in the event of a serious raid, two or three
energetic persons could in the course of a few weeks establish new youth
circles, which, as is well known, spring up very quickly even now, and
link them up with the centre, and when this common task, which has
been interrupted by the raid, is apparent to all, the new circles could
spring up and link themselves up with it even more rapidly.
On the other hand, picture to yourselves a popular uprising. Probably
everyone will now agree that we must think of this and prepare for it.
But how to prepare for it? Surely the Central Committee cannot appoint
agents to go to all the districts for the purpose of preparing for the upris-
ing! Even if we had a Central Committee it could achieve nothing by
making such appointments, considering the conditions prevailing in
contemporary Russia. But a network of agents that would automatically
be created in the course of establishing and distributing a common news-
paper would not have to "sit around and wait" for the call to rebellion,
but would carry on the regular work that would guarantee the highest
probability of success in the event of a rebellion. Such work would strength-
en our contacts with the broadest strata of the masses of the workers
and with all those strata who are discontented with the autocracy, which
is so important in the event of an uprising. It is precisely such work that
would help to cultivate the ability properly to estimate the general po-
litical situation and, consequently, the ability to select the proper mo-
ment for the uprising. It is precisely such work that would train all lo-
cal organizations to respond simultaneously to the same political ques-
tions, incidents and events that excite the whole of Russia, to react to
these "events" in the most vigorous, uniform and expedient manner possi-
ble; for is not rebellion in essence the most vigorous, most uniform and
most expedient "reaction" of the whole of the people to the conduct
of the government? And finally, such work would train all revolutionary
organizations all over Russia to maintain the most continuous, and at the
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 271
same time the most secret,' contact with each other, which would create
real Party unity — for without such contacts it will be impossible collec-
tively to discuss the plan of rebellion and to take the necessary preparatory
measures on the eve of it, which must be kept in the strictest secrecy.
In a word, the "plan for an all- Russian political newspaper" does not
represent the fruits of the work of armchair workers, infected with dog-
matism and literariness (as it seemed to those who failed to study it proper-
ly), on the contrary, it is a practical plan to begin immediately to prepare
on all sides for the uprising, while at the same time never for a moment
forgetting our ordinary, every-day work.
272 V. I. LENIN
CONCLUSION
The history of Russian Social-Democracy can be divided into three
distinct periods:
The first period covers about ten years, approximately the years 1884
to 1894. This was the period of the rise and consolidation of the theory
and program of Social-Democracy. The number of adherents of the new
tendency in Russia could be counted in units. Social-Democracy existed
without a labour movement; it was, as it were, in its period of gestation.
The second period covers three or four years — 1894-98. In this period
Social-Democracy appeared in the world as a social movement, as the
rising of the masses of the people, as a political party. This is the period
of its childhood and adolescence. The fight against Narodism and going
among the workers infected the intelligentsia wholesale like an epidemic,
and the workers were equally infected by strikes. The movement made
enormous strides. The majority of the leaders were very young people who
had by no means reached the "age of thirty-five" which to N. Mikhailovsky
appears to be a sort of natural borderline. Owing to their youth, they proved
to be untrained for practical work and they left the scene with astonishing
rapidity. But in the majority of cases the scope of their work was extreme-
ly wide. Many of them began their revolutionary thinking as Narodnaya-
Volya-ites. Nearly all of them in their early youth enthusiastically wor-
shipped the terrorist heroes. It was a great wrench to abandon the captivat-
ing impressions of these heroic traditions and it was accompanied by
the breaking-off of personal relationships with people who were deter-
mined to remain loyal to Narodnaya Volya and for whom the young
Social-Democrats had profound respect. The struggle compelled them to
educate themselves, to read the illegal literature of all tendencies and to
study closely the questions of legal Narodism. Trained in this struggle,
Social-Democrats went into the labour movement without "for a moment"
forgetting the theories of Marxism which illumined their path or the task
of overthrowing the autocracy. The formation of the Party in the spring
of 1898* was the most striking and at the same time the last act of the
Social-Democrats in this period.
* The First Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was
held in March of that year. — Ed.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 4^3
The third period, as we have seen, began in 1897 and definitely re-
placed the second period in 1898 (1898 — ?). This was the period of disper-
sion, dissolution and vacillation. In the period of adolescence the youth's
voice breaks. And so, in this period, the voice of Russian Social-Democracy
began to break, began to strike a false note — on the one hand, in the
productions of Messrs. Struve and Prokopovich, Bulgakov and Berdyaev,
on the other hand, in the productions of V. I — n and R. M., B. Krichevsky
and Martynov. But it was only the leaders who wandered about separately
and went back; the movement itself continued to grow, and it advanced
with enormous strides. The proletarian struggle spread to new strata of
the workers over the whole of Russia and at the same time indirectly stim-
ulated the revival of the democratic spirit among the students and among
other strata of the population. The consciousness of the leaders, however,
yielded to the breadth and power of the spontaneous upsurge; among
Social-Democrats, a different streak predominated — a streak of Party work-
ers who had been trained almost exclusively on "legal Marxian" literature,
and the more the spontaneity of the masses called for consciousness,
the more the inadequacy of this literature was felt. The leaders not only
lagged behind in regard to theory ("freedom of criticism") and practice
("primitiveness"), but even tried to justify their backwardness by all
sorts of high-flown arguments. Social-Democracy was degraded to the
level of trade unionism in legal literature by the Brentano-ites and in
illegal literature by the khvostists. The program of the Credo began to be
put into operation, especially when the "primitiveness" of the Social-
Democrats, caused a revival of non- Social-Democratic revolutionary
tendencies.
And if the reader reproaches me for having dealt in excessive detail
with a certain Rabocheye Dyelo, I shall say to him in reply: Rabocheye
Dyclo acquired "historical" significance because it most strikingly re-
flected the "spirit" of this third period.* It was not the consistent R. M.
but the weathercock Krichevskys and Martynovs who could properly
express the confusion and vacillation, and the readiness to make conces-
sions to "criticism," to "Economism" and to terrorism. It is not the
lofty contempt for practical work displayed by the worshippers of the
""absolute" that is characteristic of this period, but the combination of
pettifogging practice and utter disregard for theory. It was not so much
the downright rejection of "grand phrases" that the heroes of this period
engaged in as in the vulgarization of these phrases: scientific Social-
ism ceased to be an integral revolutionary theory and became a hodge-
* I could also reply with the German proverb: Den Sack schldgt man, den
Esel meint man (you beat the sack, but the blows are intended for the ass). It
^vas not Rabocheye Dyelo alone that was carried away by the fashion of "criticism**
but also the masse* of practical workers and theoreticians; they became confused
on the question of spontaneity and lapsed from the Social-Democratic to the
trade union conception of our political and organizational tasks.
18—686
274 V. I. LENIN
podge idea "freely" diluted with the contents of every new German text-
book that appeared; the slogan "class struggle" did not impel them forward
to wider and more strenuous activity but served as a soothing syrup, be-
cause the "economic struggle is inseparably linked up with the political
struggle"; the idea of a party did not serve as a call for the creation
of a militant organization of revolutionaries, but was used to justify
some sort of a "revolutionary bureaucracy" and infantile playing at
••democratic" forms .
When this third period will come to an end and the fourth begin we do
not know (at all events it is already heralded by many signs). We are
passing from the sphere of history to the sphere of the present and partly
to the sphere of the future. But we firmly believe that the fourth period
will see the consolidation of militant Marxism, that Russian Social-
Democracy will emerge from the crisis in the full strength of manhood,
that the place of the rearguard of opportunists will be taken by a "new
guard," a genuine vanguard of the most revolutionary class.
In the sense of calling for such a "new guard" and summing up, as it
were, all that has been expounded above, my reply to the question:
"What is to be^done?" can be put briefly:
Liquidate the Third Period.
Originally published
as a separate pamphlet
in 1902, Stuttgart
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK
THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
When a prolonged, stubborn and fierce struggle is in progress, there
usually comes a moment when central and fundamental points at issue
assume prominence, points upon the decision of which the ultimate out-
come of the campaign depends, and in comparison with which all the minor
and petty episodes of the struggle recede more and more into the background.
That is how matters stand with regard to the struggle within our
Party, which for six months already has been riveting the attention of
all Party members. And precisely because in the study of the whole strug-
gle herein presented to the reader I have had to allude to many points
of detail* which are of infinitesimal interest, and to many squabbles* which
at bottom are of no interest whatever, I should like from the very outset
to draw the reader's attention to two really central and fundamental points,
points which are of tremendous interest, which are unquestionably of
historical significance, and which are the most urgent political questions
at issue in our Party today.
The first question concerns the political significance of the division
of our Party into a "majority" and a "minority" which took shape at
the Second Party Congress and relegated all previous divisions amon g
Russian Social-Democrats to the distant background.
The second question concerns the significance in point of principle
of the position taken up by the new Iskra on questions of organization,
in so far as this position is really one of principle.
The first question relates to the starting point of the struggle in our
Party, its source, its causes, and its fundamental political character.
The second question relates to the ultimate outcome of the struggle, its
finale, the sum-total of principles resulting from the addition of all that
relates to the realm of principle and the subtraction of all that relates
to the realm of squabbling. The answer to the first question is obtained
* Omitted in the present edition.— J&i.
18* 276
276 V. I. LENIN
by analysing the struggle at the Party Congress; the answer to the second,
by analysing what is new in the principles of the new Iskra. This twofold
analysis, which constitutes nine-tenths of my pamphlet, leads to the con-
clusion that the "majority" is the revolutionary, and the "minority"
the opportunist wing of our Party; the dissensions that divide the two
wings at the present moment for the most part concern only questions
of organization, and not questions of program or tactics; the new system
of views of the new Iskra — which emerges the more clearly, the more it
tries to lend profundity to its posit ion and the more that position becomes
cleared of all these squabbles about co-option — is opportunism in matters
of organization.
The principal shortcoming of the existing literature on the crisis
in our Party is, as far as the study and interpretation of facts are con-
cerned, that hardly any analysis has been made of the minutes of the Party
Congress, and as far as the elucidation of fundamental principles of organ-
ization is concerned, that no analysis has been made of the connection
which unquestionably exists between the basic error Comrade Martov
and Comrade Axelrod made in their formulation of the first paragraph
of the Rules and their defence of that formulation, on the one hand, and
the whole "system" (in so far as one can speak of a system here at all)
of the present principles of the Iskra on the question of organization, on
the other. Apparently, the present editors of the Iskra do not even notice
this connection, although in the writings of the "majority" the import-
ance of the dispute over paragraph one has been referred to again and
again. As a matter of fact, Comrade Axelrod and Comrade Martov are
now only deepening, developing and extending their initial error with
tegard to paragraph one. As a matter of fact, the entire position of the
opportunists on questions of organization already began to be revealed
in the controversy over paragraph pne: their advocacy of a diffuse, not
strongly welded, Party organization; their hostility to the idea (the "bu-
reaucratic" idea) of building the Party from the top downwards, starting
from the Party Congress and the bodies set up by it; their tendency to
proceed from the bottom upwards, which would allow every professor,
every high school student and "every striker" to declare himself a mem-
ber of the Party; their hostility to the "formalism" which demands that
a Party member belong to an organization recognized by the Party; their
inclination towards the mentality of the bourgeois intellectual, who is
only prepared "platonically to recognize organizational relations"; their
penchant for opportunist profundity and for anarchist phrases; their par-
tiality for autonomy as against centralism — in a word, all that is now
blossoming so luxuriantly in the new Iskra, and is helping more and more
towards a complete and graphic elucidation of the initial error.
As for the minutes of the Party Congress, the truly undeserved neg-
lect of them can only be accounted for by the way out controversies have
been cluttered by squabbles, and possibly by the faqt that these minutes
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 277
contain too large an amount of very unpalatable truth. The minutes of
the Party Congress present a picture of the actual state of affairs in our
Party that is unique and invaluable for its accuracy, completeness, com-
prehensiveness, richness and authenticity; a picture of views, senti-
ments and plans drawn by the participants in the movement themselves;
a picture of the political shades existing in the Party, showing their rela-
tive strength, their mutual relations and their struggles. It is the minutes
of the Party Congress, and only these minutes, that show to what extent
we have really succeeded in making a clean sweep of all the survivals of
the old, narrow, circle tics and in substituting for them a single great party
tie. It is the duty of e\ery Party member who wishes to take an intelli-
gent share in the affairs of his Party to make a careful study of our Party
Congress. 1 say study advisedly, for the mere perusal of the mass of raw
material contained in the minutes is not enough to give a picture of the
Congress. Only by careful and independent study can one reach (as one
should) a stage where the brief digests of the speeches, the dry excerpts
from the debates, the petty skirmishes over minor (seemingly minor)
issues will combine to form one whole, and enable the Party member to
conjure up before his eyes the living figure of each important speaker
and to obtain a full idea of the political complexion of each group of
delegates to the Party Congress. If the writer of these lines only succeeds
in giving the reader an impetus to a broad and independent study of the
minutes of the Party Congiess, he will not regard his work in vain.
One more word to the opponents of Social-Democracy. They gloat and
grimace over our controversies; and, of course, they will try to pick isolat-
ed passages from my pamphlet, which deals with the defects and short-
comings of our Party, and to use them for their own ends. The Russian
Social-Democrats are already steeled enough in battle not to be per-
turbed by these pinpricks and to continue, in spite of them, their work of
self-criticism and ruthless exposure of their own shortcomings, which will
unquestionably and inevitably be overcome as the working-class movement
grows. As for our opponents, let them try to give us a picture of the true
state of affairs in their own "parties" even remotely approximating that
given by the minutes of our Second Congress!
May 1904
278 V. I. LENIN
A. THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONGRESS
The Iskra at the very outset, in its advance announcement in 1900, de-
clared that before we could unite, lines of demarcation must be drawn. The
Iskra tried to convert the Conference of 1902 into a private meeting and not
a Party Congress. * The Iskra acted with extreme caution in the summer and
autumn of 1902 when it revived the Organization Committee** elected at
that conference. At last the work of demarcation was completed — as was
generally admitted by us. The Organization Committee was set up at the
very end of 1902. The Iskra welcomed its consolidation and, in an editor-
ial article in its 32nd issue declared that the calling of a Party Congress
was a matter of the utmost urgency and immediacy. Hence the last thing we
can be accused of is having been precipitate in convening the Second Con-
gress. We were, in fact, guided by the maxim: "measure your cloth seven
times before you cut it."
B. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE VARIOUS GROUPINGS
AT THE CONGRESS
What was the principal task of the Congress? It was to create a real
party on that basis of principles and organization which had been advanced
and elaborated by the Iskra. That this was the direction in which the
Congress had to work was predetermined by the activities of the Iskra
over a period of three years and by the fact of its recognition by the major-
ity of the committees. The Iskra's program and policy were to become the
program and policy of the Party; the Iskra's organizational plans were to
be embodied in the rules of organization of the Party. But needless to say,
this result could not be secured without a fight; the highly representative
character of the Congress ensured the presence both of organizations which
* See Minutes of the Second Congress, p. 20.
** The Organization Committee for the purpose of convening the Second
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was set up in March 1902 at a conference held in
Byelostok.— Ed.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 279
had vigorously fought the Iskra (the Bund and the Sabocheye Dyelo) and
of organizations which, while verbally recognizing the Iskra as the leading
organ, actually pursued plans of their own and were unstable in matters
of principle (the Yuzhny Rabochy group and delegates from several of the
committees who were closely allied to it). This being the case, the Congress
could not avoid becoming a field of battle for the victory of the "Iskra" trend.
That the Congress did become such a field of battle will at once be appar-
ent to all who peruse its minutes with any amount of attention. It is now
our task to trace in detail the principal groupings that were revealed on the
various issues at the Congress and to reconstruct, using the precise data of
the minutes, the political complexion of each of the main groups. What pre-
cisely did they represent, these groups, trends and shades which were to
unite in one party at the Congress under the guidance of the Iskra? — that
is the question we have to answer by analysing the debates and the voting.
The elucidation of this point is of cardinal importance both for a study of
what our Social-Democrats really stand for and for a comprehension of the
causes of the differences among them.
C. BEGINNING OF THE CONGRESS. THE
EPISODE OF THE ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE
It will be most convenient of all to anahse the debates and the voting
in the order of the sittings of the Congress, so as successively to note the
political shades as they became more and more apparent. Departures from
the chronological order for the purpose of considering closely allied ques-
tions of similar groupings in conjunction will bemadeonly when absolute-
ly essential. For the sake of impartiality, we shall endeavour to mention
all the more important votes, omitting, of course, the innumerable votes
on minor issues which took up an inordinate amount of time at our Congress
(partly owing to our inexperience and to our inefficiency in dividing the
material between the commissions and the plenary sittings, and partly
owing to protraction which bordered on obstruction).
The first question to evoke a debate which began to reveal differences of
shades was whether first place should be given (on the "agenda" of the Con-
gress) to the item: "Posit ion of the Bund in the Party" (Minutes, pp. 29-33).
From the standpoint of the /sfcra-ites, which was advocated by Plekhanov,
Martov, Trotsky and myself, there could be no doubt on this point. The
Bund's withdrawal from the Party offers graphic confirmation of our
views: if the Bund refused to go our way and to accept the principles of or-
ganization which the majority of the Party shared with the Iskra, it would
be useless and senseless to "pretend" that we were going the same way and
only drag out the Congress (as the Bundists did drag it out). The question
had already been made abundantly clear in the literature on the subject,
280 V. I. LENIN
and it was apparent *o any thoughtful Party member that the only thing
that remained was to put the question frankly, and bluntly and honestly
make the choice: autonomy (in which case we go the same way) or federa-
tion (in which case our ways part).
Always evasive in policy, the Bundists wished to be evasive here too
and to protract the matter. They were joined by Comrade Akimov, who,,
evidently on behalf of all the followers of Rdbocheye Dyelo, at once gave
prominence to the differences with the /sfcraover questions of organization
(MinuteSy p. 31). The Bund and the Rdbocheye Dyelo were supported by
Comrade Makhov (representing two votes of the Nikolayev Committee —
which had not long prior to this expressed its solidarity with the Iskral)*
The question was altogether unclear in Comrade Makhov 's opinion, and
another "ticklish point," he considered, was, "whether we needed a demo-
cratic system or, on the contrary (mark this!), centralism."
Thus the /sfcra-ites were opposed by the J3und, the Rdbocheye Dyelo and
Comrade Makhov, who together controlled the ten votes which were cast
against us (p. 33). Thirty votes were cast in favour — this is the figure, as we
shall see later, around which the vote of the Js&ra-ites often fluctuated.
Eleven abstained, apparently not taking the side of either of the contending
"parties." It is interesting to note that when we took the vote on §2 of
the Rules of the Bund (it was the rejection of this §2 which induced the
Bund to withdraw from the Party), the votes in favour and the abstentions
again amounted to ten (Minutes, p. 289), those who abstained being the
three Rdbocheye Dyelo-itcs (Brouckere, Martynov and Akimov) and Com-
rade Makhov. Clearly, the grouping shown in the vote on the place of the
Bund item on the agenda was not fortuitous. Clearly, all these comrades dif-
fered with the Iskra not only on the technical ques tion of the order of discus-
sion, but in essence as well.
After the vote on the place of the Bund item on the agenda, the question
of the Borba group arose at the Congress; it too led to an extremely interest-
ing grouping and was closely bound up with the most "ticklish" point at
the Congress, namely, the personal composition of the central bodies. The
commission appointed to determine the composition of the Congress
had pronounced against inviting the Borba group, in accordance with
a twice-adopted decision of the Organization Committee (see Minutes*
p. 383 and p. 375) and the report of its representatives on the commission
(p. 35).
Comrade Egorov, a member of the organization Committee, declared that
"the question of the Borba (mark, of the Borba9 and not of any particular
member of this group) was something new to him"; and he demanded the
adjournment. How a question on which a decision had twice been taken
by the Organization Committee could be new to a member of the Organiza-
tion Committee is a mystery. During the adjournment a meeting of the
'Organization Committee was held (Minutes9 p. 40), attended by such of
its members as happened to be at the Congress (several members of the
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 28t
Organization Committee, old members of the Ittkra organization, were not
present at the Congress). A discussion over the Borba began. The Rabo-
cheye Dyelo-ites (Martynov, Akimov and Brouckere — pp. 36-38) pro-
claimed in favour, the /sfcra-ites (Pavlovich, Sorokin, Lange, Trotsky, Mar-
tov and others) against. Again the Congress split into the already familiar
groupings. The struggle over the Borba was a stubborn one, and Comrade
Martov made a very circumstantial (p. 38) and "militant" speech, in which
he justly pointed to the "inequality of representation" of the Russian and
foreign groups, and said that it would hardly be "well" to allow a foreign
group any "privilege" (words of gold, which are particularly edifying
today in the light of the events that have occurred since the Congress!), and
that we should not encourage "the organizational chaos in the Party that
was marked by a disunity which was not necessitated by any considera-
tions of principle."
Apart from the followers of the RabocJieye Dyeh, nobody came out openly
and with reasoned motives on behalf of Borba until the list of speakers was
closed (p. 40).
Af er the list of speakers had been closed, when it was already out ot
order to speak on the point at issue, Comrade Egorov "insistently demanded
that the decision just adopted by the Organization Committee should be
heard." It is not surprising that the delegates were outraged by this manoeu-
vre, and Comrade Plekhanov, the chairman, expressed his "astonishment
that Comrade Egorov should insist upon his demand." Two courses were
open, one would think: either to express oneself frankly and definitely to
the G)ngress on the question at issue, or to say nothing at all. But to allow
the list of speakers to be closed and then, under the guise of a "reply to the
debate," to treat the Congress to a new decision of the Organization Commit-
tee— and on the very subject under discussion — was like a stab in the
back!
The sitting was resumed after dinner, and the Bureau, still in perplex-
ity, decided to waive "formalities" and to resort to the method of "comrade-
ly explanation," a method adopted at congresses only in extreme cases, as
a last resort. Popov, the representative of the Organization Committee,,
announced the decision of the Organization Committee, which had been
supported by all its members except one, Pavlovich (p. 43), and which
recommended the Congress to invite Ryazanov.
Pavlovich declared that he had continued to deny the legitimacy of the
meeting of the Organization Committee, and that its new decision "con-
tradicts its earlier decision" This statement caused a furore. Comrade Ego-
rov, also a member of the Organization Committee and a member of the
Yuzhny Rabochy group, evaded a plain answer on the actual subject in
dispute and tried to shift the issue to one of discipline. He claimed that
Comrade Pavlovich had violated Party discipline [!], for, having heard his
protest, the Organization Committee had decided "not to lay Pavlovich '&
dissenting opinion before the Congress." The debate now centred around
282 V. L LENIN
a question of Party discipline, and Plekhanov, amid the loud applause of
the delegates, explained for the edification of Comrade Egorov that "»>e
Aave no such thing as imperative mandates" (p. 42; c/. p. 379, Standing Or-
ders of the Congress § 7: "The powers of delegates must not be restricted by
imperative mandates. Delegates are absolutely free and independent in the
•exercise of their powers"). "The Congress is the supreme Party body," and,
consequently, he violates Party discipline and the standing orders of the
•Congress who in any way restricts a delegate in addressing the Congress
-directly on any question, without exception, affecting the life of the Party.
The issue was thus reduced to the dilemma: the circle spirit or the Party
spirit? Were the rights of the delegates to be restricted at the Congress for
the sake of the imaginery rights or constitutions of the various bodies and
circles, or were all lower bodies and old groups to be completely, and not
nominally, disbanded before the Congress, pending the creation of really
Party authoritative institutions. The reader already perceives how pro-
foundly important from the standpoint of principle was this dispute at the
very outset of the Congress (third sitting), a congress whose actual purpose it
was to restore the Party. Around this dispute, as it were, concentrated the
conflict between the old circles and groups (like Y uzh y Rabochy) and the
renascent Party. And the anti-/«jfcra groups at once revealed themselves:
Abramson, a Bundist, Comrade Martynov, an ardent ally of the present
Iskra editorial board, and our friend Comrade Makhov all sided with Egorov
and the Yuzhny Rdbochy group against Pavlovich. Comrade Martynov, who
is now vying with Martov and Axelrod in making great play of "democracy"
in organization, even cited the example of ... the army, where an appeal
to a superior authority can be made only through the lower authority 1 1 The
true meaning of this "compact" anti-/$fcra opposition was quite clear to
anybody who was present at the Congress or who had carefully followed the
internal history of our Party prior to the Congress. It was the purpose of
the opposition (perhaps not always realized by all of its representatives,
and sometimes pursued from force of inertia) to guard the indepen-
dence, individualism and parochial interests of the small groups from
being swallowed up in the broad Party that was being built on the Iskra
principles.
It was just from this angle that the question was approached by Com-
rade Martov, who had not yet joined forces with Martynov. Comrade
Martov vigorously took up the cudgels, and rightly so, against those
whose "idea of Party discipline does not go beyond the duties of a revo-
lutionary to the particular group of a lower order to which he belongs."
""No compulsory [Martov 's italics] grouping can be tolerated within
a united Party," Martov explained to those who championed
the methods of the circles, not foreseeing what a flail these words
"would be for his own political conduct at the end of the Congress
and after. . . .
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 285
D. DISSOLUTION OF THE YUZHNY RABOCHY GROUP
The division of the delegates over the Organization Committee ques-
tion may perhaps seem casual. But this opinion would be wrong, and in
order to dispel it we shall depart from the chronological order and will
now examine an episode which occurred at the end of the Congress, but
which is very closely connected with the previous episode. This episode
was the dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy group. The organizational
trend of the Iskra — complete union of the Party forces and removal of
the chaos which divided them — here came into conflict with the interests
of one of the groups, a group which had done useful work when there
was no real party, but which had become superfluous when the work
was being centralized. From the standpoint of its circle interests, the
Yuzhny Rabochy group was no less entitled than the old Iskra editorial
board to lay claim to "continuity" and inviolability. But in the interests
of the Party, this group should have submitted to the transfer of its
forces to "the proper Party organizations" (p. 313, end of resolution
adopted by the Congress). From the point of view of circle interests and
"philistinism," the dissolution of a useful group, which no more desired
it than the old Iskra editorial board, could not but seem a "ticklish
matter" (the expression used by Comrade Russov and Comrade Deutsch).
But from the point of view of the interests of the Party, its dissolution,
"solution" into the Party (Gussev's expression) was essential. The Yuzhny
Rabochy group bluntly declared that it "did not consider it necessary"
to proclaim itself dissolved and demanded that "the Congress definitely
pronounce its opinion" and, what is more, "immediately." yes or no."
The Yuzhny Rnbochy group openly claimed the "continuity" to which the
old Iskra editorial board began to lay claim . . . after it had been dissolved!
"Although we are all individually members of a united party," Com-
rade Egorov said, "it nevertheless consists of a number of organizations
with which we have to reckon as historical magnitudes. ... If such an
organization is not detrimental to the Party, there is no need to dissolve it."
Thus an important question of principle was quite definitely raised, and
all the Jtf&ra-ites — inasmuch as their own circle interests had not yet
taken the upper hand — took a decisive stand against the unstable elements
(the Bundists and two of the Rabocheye Dyeto-ites had already withdrawn
from the Congress; they would undoubtedly have been heart and soul in
favour of "reckoning with historical magnitudes"). The result of the vote
.was thirty-one for, five against and five abstentions (the four votes of the
members of the Yuzhny Rabochy group and one other, that of Belov,
most likely, judging by his earlier pronouncements, p. 308). A group of
ten votes distinctly opposed to the Iskra's consistent organizational plan
and defending the circle principle as against the Party principle, are here
quite definitely to be discerned in the debate; the Iskra-itcs treated the
question precisely from the standpoint of principle (see Lange's speech,
284 V. I. LENIN
p. 315), opposing amateurishness and disunity, refusing to pay heed to the
"sympathies" of individual organizations, and plainly declaring that
"if the comrades of the Yuzhny Rabochy" had adhered more strictly to prin-
ciple earlier, a year or two ago, the unity of the Party and the triumph of
the program principles we have sanctioned here would have been achieved
sooner. This was the spirit expressed by Orlov, by Gussev, by Lyadov,
by Mufavyov, by Russov, by Pavlovich, by Glebov and by Gorin. Far
from protesting against these definite references, repeatedly made at the
Congress, to the lack of principle in the policy and "line" of the Yuzhny
Rabochy 9 of Makhov and others, far from making any reservation on this
score, the /sA-ra-ites of the "minority," in the person of Deutsch, vigorously
associated themselves with these views, condemned "chaos" and welcomed
the "blunt statement of the question" (p. 315) by Comrade Russov.
Among the Yuzhny Rabochy group, the proposal to dissolve it evoked
the most passionate indignation, traces of which are to be found in the
minutes (it should not be forgotten that the minutes oft'er only a pale
reflection of the debates, for they do not give the full speeches but only
very condensed summaries and extracts). Comrade Egorov even called
the bare reference to the Rabochaya 31ysl group in conjunction with the
Yuzhny Rabochy group a "lie" — a characteristic illustration of the attitude
towards consistent Economism that prevailed at the Congress. Even much
later, at the 37th sitting, Egorov spoke of the dissolution of the Yuzhny
Rabochy group with the utmost irritation (p. 356), requesting to have it
recorded in the minutes that during the discussion on the Yuzhny Rabochy
the members of this group were not asked either about publication funds
or about control by the Central Organ and the Central Committee. During
the discussion on the Yuzhny Raboc hy, Comrade Popov hinted at a compact
majority which \vas supposed .to have predetermined the fate of this group.
"Now," he said (p. 316), "after the speeches of Comrade* Gussev and Orlov,
everything is clear." The meaning of these words is unmistakable: now,
after the /*fcra-ites had stated their opinion and had moved a resolution,
everything was clear, that is, it was clear that the Yuzhny Rabochy group
would be dissolved against its wishes.
E. THE EQUALITY OF LANGUAGES EPISODE
Let us return and examine the Congress sittings in their proper order.
We have now convincingly seen that even before the Congress proceeded
to discuss its actual business, there, were already clearly revealed not only
a perfectly definite group of anti-/*ira-ites (eight votes), but also a group
of intermediate and unstable elements who were prepared to support the
eight anti-/$fcra-ites and increase their votes to roughly sixteen or eighteen.
The question of the place of the Bund in the Party, which was discussed
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BUK 2*»
at the Congress in extreme detail — excessive detail — reduced itself to lay-
ing down a thesis in principle, while its practical decision was postponed
until the discussion on organization. In view of the fact that quite a lot of
space had been devoted in pre-Congress publications to the subjects pertain-
ing to this question, very little that was new was said at the Congress. It
must however be mentioned that the supporters of the Rabocheye Dyelo
(Martynov, Akimov and Brouckere) agreed withMartov's resolution, only
with the reservation that they realized its inadequacy and differed with its
conclusions (pp. 69, 73, 83, and 86).
Having discussed the place of the Bund, the Congress proceeded to con-
sider the program. The discussion under this head mostly centred around
particular amendments of slight interest. The opposition of the anti-JsJtra-
ites on matters of principle found expression only in Comrade Martynov's
onslaught on the famous question of spontaneity and conscious ness. Mart y-
nov, of course, was backed by the Bundists and the Rabocheye Dyelo-ites
to a man. The unsoundness of his objections was pointed out, incidentally,
by Martov and Plekhanov. It should be noted as a curiosity that the Iskra
editorial board have now taken their stand withMartynov and are saying
the very opposite of what they said at the Congress!
Passing over the dispute about the adoption of Iskra as the central organ
and the beginning of the debate on the Rules (which it will be more conve-
nient to examine in connection with the whole discuss ion of the Rules), let
us proceed to consider the shades of principle that were revealed during
the discussion of the program. Let us first note one detail of a highly char-
acteristic nature, namely, the debate on proportional representation. Com-
rade Egorov of the Yuzhny Rabochy advocated the inclusion of this point
in the program, and did so in a way that called forth the justified remark
from Posadovsky (an Iskra -ite of the minority) about "a serious difference
of opinion." "It is unquestionable," said Comrade Posadovsky, "that we
do not agree on the following basic question: must we subordinate our fu-
ture policy to certain fundamental democratic principles and attribute abso-
lute value to them , or must all democratic principles be exclusively subordinat-
ed to the interests of our Party? I am decidedly in favour of the latter."
Plekhanov "fully associated himself" with Posadovsky, objecting in even
more definite and decisive terms to "the absolute value of democratic princi-
ples" and to regarding them"abstractly.""Hypothetically," he said, "a case
is conceivable where we Social-Democrats may oppose universal suffrage.
There was a time when the bourgeoisie of the Italian republics deprived
members of the nobility of political rights. The revolutionary proletar-
iat might restrict the political rights of the upper classes just as the upper
classes atone time restricted its political rights." Plekhanov's speech was
greeted with applause and hisses, and when Plekhanov protested against
somebody 'sZwischenruf,* "You should not hiss," and requested the com-
* Zwiachenruf - an interjection from the body of the hall. — Ed.
286 V. I. LENIN
rades not to restrain their demonstrations, Comrade Egorov rose and said:
"Since such speeches call forth applause, I am obliged to hiss." Together
with Comrade Goldblatt (a Bund delegate), Comrade Egorov spoke in oppo-
sition to the views of Posadovsky and Plekhanov. Unfortunately, the de-
bate was closed, and the question it gave rise to immediately receded into
the background.
The Difference was revealed even more distinctly in the discussion on
"equality of languages" (Minutes, pp. 171 etseq.). On this point it was not
so much the debate that was so eloquent as the votings: adding them togeth-
er, we get the incredible number of sixteen*. Over what? Over whether it
was enough to stipulate in the program the equality of all citizens, irre-
spective of sex, etc., and language, or whether it was necessary to stipulate
"freedom of language" or "equality of languages ." Comrade Martov charac-
terized this episode pretty accurately at the League Congress when he said
that "a trifling dispute over the formulation of one clause of the program
acquired fundamental significance because half the Congress was prepared
to overthrow the Program Commission." Just so. The immediate cause of
the conflict was indeed trifling, yet it assumed a truly fundamental char-
acter, and, consequently, frightfully bitter forms, going to the length
even of attempts to "overthrow" the Program Commission, to the voicing
of the suspicion that there was a desire "/o mislead the Congress" (of which
Egorov suspected Martov!), and to personal remarks . . . remarks of the
most abusive kind (p. 178). Even Comrade Popov "expressed regret that
mere trifles had given rise to such an atmosphere" (my italics, p. 182) as
reigned during the course of three sittings (16th, 17th and 18th).
All these expressions are perfectly explicit and positively indicative of
the eloquent fact that the atmosphere of "suspicion" and of the most bitter
forms of conflict ("overthrowing") — which was later, at the League Con-
gress, laid at the door of the 'Iskra-ite majority! — actually arose Jong 'be-
fore we split into a majority and a minority. It was not cutting remarks and
witticisms that gave rise to the conflict — they were only a symptom of the
fact that the very political grouping at the Congress harboured a "contra-
diction," that it harboured all the makings of a conflict, that it harboured
an internal heterogeneity which burst forth with imminent force at the
least pretext, even the most trifling.
From the standpoint from which I regard the Congress the desperately
acute conflict of a fundamental character which arose from a "trifling"
cause is quite explicable and inevitable. Inasmuch as a struggle between
the/$ira-ites and the anti-Jsfcra-ites wentonaZZ the time at the Congress, in-
asmuch as between them stood the unstable elements, and inasmuch as the
latter, together with the anti-I*fcra-ites, controlled one- third of the votes
(8+10=18, out of 51, according to my calculation, an approximate one, of
course), it is perfectly clear and natural that any falling away from the
"Iskra"-ites of even a small minority should create the possibility of a vic-
tory for the znti-Iskra trend and should therefore call forth a "frantic"
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 28~
struggle. This was not the result of inappropriate cutting remarks and at-
tacks but of a political combination. It was not that cutting remarks gave
rise to a political conflict, but that the existence of a political conflict in
the very grouping at the Congress gave rise to cutting remarks and
attacks — in this juxtaposition lies the root of the fundamental difference
between our estimate and Martov 's of the political significance of the
Congress and its results.
During the Congress there were in all three major cases of a small num-
ber of Iskra-ites falling away from the majority — over the question of equal-
ity of languages, over § 1 of the Rules, and over the elections — and in all
three cases a bitter struggle resulted, leading in the end to the severe crisis
we have in the Party today. If we want to get a political understanding of
this crisis and of this struggle, we must examine the political grouping of
the shades that clashed at the Congress.
The war opened with a dispute between Comrade Martov and Comrade
Lieber, the leader of the Bundists (pp. 171-72). Martov argued that the
demand for "equality of citizens" was enough. "Freedom of language"
was rejected, but "equality of languages" was at once proposed, and Com-
rade Egorov joined Lieber in the fray. Martov declared that it was fe-
tishism "when speakers insist on saying that nationalities are equal and
transfer inequality to the sphere of language, whereas it is from just the
opposite angle that the question should be examined: inequality of nation-
alities exists, and one of its expressions is that people belonging to certain
nations are deprived of the right to use their mother tongue" (p. 172).
The grouping of the delegates in this fight is made particularly clear
by the abundant roll-call votes. There were as many as three. Thelskra
nucleus was solidly opposed all the time by the anti-lsfcra-ites (eight
votes) and, with very slight fluctuations, by the whole Centre (Makhov,.
Lvov, Egorov, Popov, Medvedyev, Ivanov, Tsaryov and Belov — only
the last two vacillated at first, sometimes abstaining, sometimes voting
with us, and it was only during the third vote that their position became
fully defined). Of the Jajfcra-ites, several fell away— chiefly the Caucasians
(three with six votes) — and thanks to this, the "fetishist" trend in the
long run gained the upper hand. During the third vote, when the follow-
ers of both trends had clarified their position most fully, the three Cau-
casians, with six votes, broke away from the Iskra-ite majority and went
over to the other side: two delegates — Posadovsky and Kostich — with
two votes, fell away from the Iskra-ite minority; the following went
over to the other side or abstained during the first two votes: Lensky,
Stepanov and Gorsky of the Iskra-ite majority, and Deutsch of the minor-
ity. The falling away of eight "Iskra" votes (out of a total of thirty-three)
gave the superiority to the coalition of the anti-" Iskra" -ites and the unstable
elements. It was just this basic fact of the Congress grouping which was re-
peated (only other Iskra-itcs falling away) during the vote on § 1 of the
Rules and during the elections.
288 V. I. LENIN
F. THE AGRARIAN PROGRAM
The inconsistency of principle of the anti-/s£ra-ites and the "Centre"
•was also clearly brought out by the debate on the agrarian program which
took up so much time at the Congress (see Jtt mutes y pp. 190-226) and
raised quite a number of extremely interesting questions. As was to be
•expected, the campaign against the program was launched by Comrade
^Martynov (after a few remarks by Comrades Lieber and Egorov). He
brought out the old argument about correcting "this particular historical
injustice,"* whereby, he claimed, we were indirectly "sanctifying other
historical injustices," and so on. He was joined by Comrade Egorov, to
-whom even "the significance of this program is unclear. Is it a program
for ourselves, that is, does it define our demands, or do we want to make
it popular?" (!?!?) Comrade Lieber "would like to make the same
points as Comrade Egorov." Comrade Makhov spoke with his
characteristic decisiveness and declared that "the majority [?] of the
speakers positively cannot understand what the proposed program means
and what its aims are." The program submitted, you see "can hardly be
regarded as a Social-Democratic agrarian program"; it ... "smacks
somewhat of a game at correcting historical injustices"; it bears "the
stamp of demagogy and adventurism." As a theoretical justification of
this profound remark we get the caricature and over-simplification so
customary in vulgar Marxism: the /^rci-ites, we are told, "want to treat
the peasants as though their composition were homogeneous; but as the
peasantry has split up into classes long ago [?], putting forward a single
program must inevitably render the whole program demagogic and turn
it into a dubious venture when put into practice" (p. 202). Comrade
Makhov here "blurted out" the real reason why our agrarian program meets
with the disapproval of many Social -Democrats who are prepared to re-
cognize the Iskra (as Makhov himself did), but who have absolutely failed
to grasp its trend, its theoretical and practical position. It was the vulgar.
ization of Marxism as applied to present-day Russian peasant economy,
with all its complexity and variety, and not differences over particular is-
sues, that gave rise, and still gives rise, to the failure to understand this
program. And it was on this vulgar Marxist standpoint that the leaders
of the anti-/$&ra elements (Lieber and Martynov) and of the "Centre"
(Egorov and Makhov) so quickly found common ground. Comrade Egorov
gave frank expression also to one of the characteristic traits of the Yuzh-
ny Rabochyznd of the groups and circles, gravitating towards it, namely,
their failure to grasp the importance of the peasant movement, their
failure to grasp that it was an underestimation rather than an overes-
*. This refers to the demand made in the agrarian program of the R.S.D.L.P.
that the so-called otrezki — t.e., the better portions of land essential to peasant
farming which were cut off, or inclosed, for the benefit of the landlords at the
time of the abolition of serfdom in 1861 — be returned to the peasants. — E&.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 289
timation of the importance of the movement (and a lack offerees to
utilize it) that was the weak side of our Social-Democrats at the time of
the first famous peasant revolts. "I am far from sharing the infatuation
of the editorial board for the peas ant movement," said Comrade Egorov,
"an infatuation with which many Social-Democrats have been affected
since the peas ant disorders." But, unfortunately, Comrade Egorov did not
take the trouble to give the Congress any precise idea of what this
infatuation of the editorial board consisted in; he did not take the
trouble to give any specific reference to the material published by the
Iskra. Moreover, he forgot that all the basic points of our agrarian
program had already been developed by the Iskra in its third issue,*
that is long before the peasant disorders.** He whose "recognition" of
the Iskra is not merely a verbal one would do well to pay a little
more heed to its theoretical and tactical principles.
"No, we cannot do much among the peasants!" — Comrade Egorov
exclaimed, and went on to explain that this exclamation was not meant
as a protest against any particular "infatuation," but as a denial of our
entire position: "that means that our slogan cannot compete with an
adventurist slogan." A most characteristic formulation revealing the lack
of principle in this attitude, which reduces everything to "competition"
between the slogans of different parties! And this was said after the speak-
er had announced his "satisfaction" with the theoretical explanations,
in which it was stated that we were striving for lasting success in our agi-
tition, undeterred by temporary failures, and that lasting success (de-
spite the clamour of momentary "competitors") was impossible without
a firm theoretical basis to the program (p. 196). What confusion is dis-
closed by this assurance of "satisfaction," immediately followed as it was
by a repetition of the vulgar precepts inherited from the old Economism,
for which the "competition of slogans" decided everything — not only the
agrarian question, but the entire program and tactics of the economic and
political struggle! "You will not induce the agricultural labourer," Com-
rade Egorov said, "to fight side by side with the rich peasant for the otrezki,
which to no small extent are already in the hands of the rich peasant."
There again you have the over-simplification that is undoubtedly
akin to our opportunist Economism, which insisted that it was impos-
sible to "induce" the proletarian to fight for what was to no small ex-
tent in the hands of the bourgeoisie and would fall into its hands to an
even larger extent in the future. There again you have the vulgarization
that forgets the Russian peculiarities of the general capitalist relations
between the agricultural labourer and the rich peasant. The otrezki are
now a sore point, and they are a sore point in fact with the agricultural
* See "The Workers' Party and the Peasantry," Lenin, Selected Works,
Eng. ed., Vol. II.— Ed.
** The reference is to the peasant revolts of 1902 in the Poltava, Kharkov and
other provinces. — Ed.
19-685
290 V. I. LENIN
labourer as well, who does not have to be "induced" to fight for emanci-
pation from his state of servitude. It is certain intellectuals who have to
be "induced" — induced to take a wider view of their tasks, induced to
renounce stereotyped formulas when discussing specific questions, in-
duced to take account of the historical situation, which complicates and
modifies our aims. It is in fact only the prejudice that the muzhik is
stupid — a prejudice which, as Comrade Martov justly remarked (p. 202)
was to be detected in the speeches of Comrade Makhov and the other
opponents of the agrarian program— only this prejudice explains why
they forget the actual conditions of life of our agricultural labourers.
Having simplified the question down to a naked contrast of worker
and capitalist, the spokesmen of the "Centre" tried, as usual, to ascribe
their own narrow-mindedness to the muzhik. "It is just because I consid-
er the muzhik, within the limits of his narrow class outlook, a clever
fellow," Comrade Makhov remarked, "that 1 believe he will stand for
the petty-bourgeois ideal of seizure and division." Two things arc obvious-
ly confused here: the description of the class outlook of the muzhik
as that of a petty bourgeois, and ike narronnng dowi, the reduction, of
this outlook to "narrow limits." It is in this reduction that the mistake
of the Egorovs and Makhovs lies (just as the mistake of the Martynovs
and Akimovs lay in reducing the outlook of the proletarian to "narrow
limits"). Yet both logic and history teach us that the petty-bourgeois
class outlook may be more or less narrow and more or less progresshe,
just because of the dual status of the petty bourgeois. And far from drop-
ping our hands in despair because of this narrowness ("stupidity") of the
muzhik or because he is governed by "prejudice," we must work steadily
to widen his outlook and to help his reason triumph over his prejudice.
The vulgar "Marxist" view of the Russian agrarian question found
its culmination in the concluding words of Comrade Makhov 's speech,
in which that faithful champion of the old Iskra editorial board set
forth his principles. It was not for nothing that these words were greeted
with applause . . . ironical applause, to be sure. "I do not know, of
course, what to call a misfortune," said Comrade Makhov, outraged by
Plekhanov's statement that we were not at all alarmed by the
movement for a black redistribution, and that it is not we who would
attempt to check this progressive (bourgeois progressive) movement.
"But this revolution, if it can be called such, would not be a revolution-
ary one. It would be truer to call it, not revolution, but reaction [laugh-
ter], a revolution that was more like a riot. . . , Such a revolution would
throw us back, and it would require a certain amount of time before we
got back to the position we are in today. Today we have far more than
during the French Revolution [ironical applause], we have a Social-
Democratic Party" [laughter}. ...
We thus find that even on the questions of pure principle raised by the:
agrarian program, the already familiar grouping at once appeared. The anti-
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 291
JWfera-ites (eight votes) launched into the fray on behalf of vulgar Marx-
ism, and the leaders of the "Centre," theEgorovs and the Makhovs, trailed
after them, gradually erring and straying into the same narrow outlook*
It is therefore quite natural that the voting on certain points of the agrarian
program should result in 30 and 35 votes in favour (pp. 225 and 226), that
is, approximately the same figure as we observed in the dispute over the
order of discussion of the Bund question, in the Organization Committee
episode, and in the question of dissolving the Yuzhny Rabochy. An issue had
only to arise which in any way departed from the usual and established
stereotype and demanded any independent application of Marxist theory to
social and economic relations that were new (to the Germans) and peculiar,
and we immediately find that the Iskra-itcs who were able to cope with
the problems had only three- fifths of the vote, and that the whole "Centre"
turned and followed the Liebers and the Martynovs.
The debate on the agrarian program gives a clear picture of the struggle
of the /afcra-ites against a good two-fifths of the Congress. On this question
the Caucasian delegates took up an absolutely correct stand — due largely to
the fact, apparently, that a close acquaintance with their numerous local
feudal survivals warned them against the schoolboyish abstract and naked
contrasts which satisfied the Makhovs. Martynov, Lieber, Makhov and
Egorov were combated by Plekhanov, by Gussev (who declared that he
had had "frequent occasion to meet such a pessimistic view of our work in
the countryside". . . as Comrade Egorov 's . . . "among the comrades active
in Russia"), by Kostrov, by Karsky and by Trotsky. The latter rightly
remarked that the "well-meant advice" of the critics of the agrarian pro-
gram "smacked too much of philistinism."
Referring to the arguments which smacked of "philistinism," Tro-
tsky declared that "in the approaching period of revolution we must form
ties with the peasantry". . . . "In face of this task, the scepticism and politi-
cal 4far-sightedness' of Makhov and Egorov are more harmful than any
short-sightedness." Comrade Kostich, another minority JsArra-ite, very
aptly pointed to the "lack of confidence in himself, in the stability of his
principles" displayed by Comrade Makhov, a description which fits our
"Centre" admirably. "In his pessimism," Comrade Kostich continued,
"Comrade Makhov is at one with Comrade Egorov, although they dif-
fer as to shades. He forgets that the Social-Democrats are already working
among the peasantry, are already directing their movement as far as pos-
sible. And their pessimism is narrowing the scope of our work." (P. 210.)
To conclude our examination of the discussion of the program at tho^
Congress, mention should be made of the brief debate on the subject of
supporting oppositional trends. Our program clearly states that the So-
cial-Democratic Party supports "every oppositional and revolutionary
movement directed against the existing social and political order in Russia.''9
It would seem that this last reservation makes it perfectly clear exactly
which oppositional trends we support. Nevertheless, the various shades
19*
292 V. I. LENIN
which had evolved long ago in our Party at once revealed themselves here
too, difficult as it was to assume that any "perplexity or misunderstandings"
were still possible on a question which had been digested so thoroughly!
Evidently, the trouble lay not in misunderstandings, but mshades. Makhov,
Lieber and Martynov at once sounded the alarm. . . .
Makhov again began with a vulgar over- simplification of Marxism.
"Our only revolutionary class is the proletariat," he declared, and from
this correct premise he at once drew an incorrect conclusion: "The resr
are of no account, not worth anything [general laughter J. . . . Yes, they are
not worth anything; all they are out for is their own advantage. I am against
supporting them." (P. 226.) Comrade Makhov 's inimitable formulation
of his position embarrassed many (of his supporters), but as a matter of
fact Lieber and Martynov agreed with him when they proposed to delete
the word "oppositional" or to restrict it by an addition: "democratic-op-
positional." Plekhanov quite rightly took up the cudgels against this am-
endment of Martynov 's. "We must criticize the liberals," he said, "expose
their half-heartedness. That is true. . . . But, while exposing the narrowness
and limitations of all movements other than the Social-Democratic, it is
our duty to explain to the proletariat that even a constitution which docs
not confer universal suffrage would be a step forward compared with ab-
solutism, and therefore it should not prefer the existing order to such a
constitution." Comrades Martynov, Lieber and Makhov did not agree
with this and stuck to their position, which was attacked by Axclrod,
Starovyer and Trotsky and once more by Plekhanov. Meanwhile, Comrade
Makhov managed to surpass himself. He had said at first that the other
classes (other than the proletariat) were "of no account" and that he was
"against supporting them." Then he condescended to admit that "while it is
essentially reactionary, the bourgeoisie is sometimes revolutionary — for
example, in the struggle against feudalism and its survivals." "But there
are some groups," he continued, "which are always [?] reactionary —
such as the handicraftsmen." Such are the gems of principle arrived at by
those very leaders of our "Centre" who later foamed at the mouth in defence
of the old editorial board! Even in Western Europe, where the guild sys-
tem was so strong, the handicraftsmen, like the other petty bourgeois of
the towns, were most revolutionary in the era of the fall of absolutism.
And it is particularly absurd of a Russian Social-Democrat to repeat with-
out reflection what our Western comrades say about the present-day handi-
craftsmen, the handicraftsmen of an era separated by a century or half a
century from the fall of absolutism. To speak, in Russia, of the reactionary
nature of the handicraftsmen on political questions compared with the
bourgeoisie is merely to repeat a hackneyed phrase learnt by rote.*
* Another leader of this same group, the "Centre," Comrade Egorov, spoke
on the question of supporting the oppositional trends on a different occasion,
in connection with Axelrod's resolution on the Socialist-Revolutionaries (p. 359).
ONE STEP FORWARD* TWO STEPS BACK 293
G. THE PARTY RULES
Having discussed the program, the Congress proceeded to the Party
Rules (we pass over the question of the Central Organ and the delegates'
reports, which the majority of the delegates were unfortunately unable
to present in a satisfactory form). It need hardly be said that the Party
Rules were of the utmost importance to all of us. After all, the Iskra
had acted from the very outset not only as a periodical but as an organi-
zational nucleus. In an editorial in its fourth issue ("Where To Begin?") the
Iskra had set forth a whole plan of organization, a plan which it pursued
systematically and steadily over a period of three years. When the Second
Party Congress adopted the Iskra as the central organ, two of the three points
setting forth the motives of the resolution on the subject (p. 147) were
devoted just to this plan and these ideas oj organization advocated by "Iskra"
namely, its role in the leadership of the practical work of the Party and the
leading part it played in the work of attaining unity. It is therefore quite
natural that the work of the Iskra and the whole work of organizing the
Party, the whole work of actitaUy restoring the Party, could not be regarded
as complete unless certain definite ideas of organization were recognized
by the whole Party and formally enacted. It was this task that the rules
of Party organization were to perform.
The principal ideas which the Iskra strove to make the basis of the Par-
ty's organization amounted essentially to the following two: first, the
idea of centralism, which defined in principle the method of deciding all
particular and detail questions of organization; second, the special function
of an organ, a newspaper, for ideological leadership, an idea which took into
account the temporary and special requirements of the Russian Social-
Democratic labour movement amidst conditions of political slavery, on
the understanding that the primary base of operations for the revolution-
ary assault would be set up abroad. The first idea, the only correct one in
principle, was to permeate the whole Rules; the second, being a particular
idea necessitated by temporary circumstances of place and mode of action,
took the form of an apparent departure from centralism in the proposal to
set up two centres, a Central Organ and a Central Committee. Both these
principal Iskra ideas of Party organization had been developed by me in the
Iskra editorial (No. 4) "Where To Begin?"* and in What Is To Be Dom\**
Comrade Egorov detected a "contradiction" between the demand in the program
to support every opposition al and revolutionary movement and the unfavourctble
attitude towards both the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the liberals. In another
form, and approaching the question from a somewhat different angle, Comrade
Bgotov here revealed the same narrow conception of Marxism, and the same un-
stable, semi-hostile attitude towards the position of the Iskra (which he had
"recognized") as Comrades Makhov, Licber and Martynov.
* See Lenin, Collected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. IV.— Ed.
** Sec this volume, pp. 149-271.— Ed.
2M V. L LENIN
and, finally, were explained in detail in a form that practically
resembled rules in **A Letter to a Comrade.** Actually, all that
remained was a certain amount of drafting in order to obtain the formu-
lation of the paragraphs of the Rules which were to embody just those
ideas, if the recognition of the Iskra was not to be merely nominal, a mere
conventional phrase*
H. DISCUSSION ON CENTRALISM PRIOR TO THE SPLIT
AMONG THE ISKSA-ITES
Before passing to the really interesting question of the formulation
of §1 of the Rules, a question which undoubtedy disclosed the existence
of different shades of opinion, let us dwell a little on that brief general
discussion of the Rules which occupied the 14th sitting and part of the
15th sitting of the Congress. Comrade Martov associated himself (p. 157)
with my views on organization, only making the reservation that he differed
on two particular points. Both the anti-/*&ra-ites and the "Centre," on
the contrary, at once launched into the fray against both the basic ideas
of the Iskra plan of organization (and, consequently, against the Rules in
their entirety), namely, centralism and the "two centres." Comrade
Lieber referred to my Rules as "organized distrust" and discerned
decentralism in the proposal for two centres (as did Comrades Popov and
Egorov). Comrade Akimov expressed the desire that the jurisdiction of
the local committees should be defined more widely, in particular, that "the
right to alter their composition themselves" be conferred on them. "They
should be allowed greater freedom of action. . . . The local committees
should be elected by the active workers in their localities, just as the Cen-
tral Committee is elected by the representatives of all the active organiza-
tions in Russia. But if even this cannot be allowed, let the number of
members that the Central Committee may appoint to the local committees
be limited. . . ." (P. 158.) Comrade Akimov, as you see, suggested an argu-
ment against "hypertrophy of centralism, "but ComradeMartov remained
deaf to these weighty arguments until defeat over the question of the
composition of the central bodies induced him to follow in Akimov 's wake.
At that time the only opponents of "monstrous centralism" were those
to whom Iskra's centralism was clearly disadvantageous: it was opposed
by Akimov, Lieber and Goldblatt, 'followed, cautiously and circum-
spectly (so that they could always turn back), by Egorov (see pp. 156
and 272) and others. At that time it was still clear to the vast majority
in the Party that it was precisely the parochial, circle interests of
the Bund, Yuzhny Rabochy, etc., that evoked the protest against
centralism.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 295
Take Comrade Goldblatt's speech, for example (pp. 160-61). He com-
plains about my "monstrous" centralism, and claims, that it would lead
to the "destruction" of the lower organizations, that it is "permeated
through and through with the desire to confer unrestricted powers on the
centre and the unrestricted right to interfere in everything," that it con-
fers on the organizations "only one right — the right to submit without a
murmur to orders from above," etc. "The centre proposed by the draft
would find itself in a vacuum, it would have no peripheral organizations
around it, but only an amorphous mass in which its executive agents would
move." At the Congress the Bund was laughed at when it fought our cen-
tralism while even more definitely granting unrestricted rights to its own
central body (for example, to admit and expel members, and even to
refuse to admit delegates to congresses).
The grouping was also clearly to be discerned over the question of the
two central bodies: all the /*ira-ites were opposed by Lieber, by Akimov,
by Popov and by Egorov. The plan for two central bodies followed logi-
cally from the ideas of organization which the old Iskra had always ad-
vocated (and which had been approved, verbally, by Comrades Popov
and Egorov!). The policy of the old Iskra militated against the plans of
the Yuzhny Rabochy, the plans to create a parallel popular organ and to
convert it virtually into the dominant organ. There lies the root of the
contradiction, so strange at a first glance, that all the anti-/sira-ites and
the entire Marsh were in favour of one central body, that is, of seeming-
ly greater centralism. Of course, there were delegates (especially among
the Marsh) who scarcely had a clear idea where the organizational plans
of the Yuzhny Rabochy would lead and were bound to lead in the
course of things, but they were impelled to follow the anti-lrfra-ites by
their own irresolute characters and lack of self-confidence.
Of the speeches by Isfcra-ites during this debate on the Rules (the one
preceding the split among the /sfcra-ites), the most remarkable were those
of Comrade Martov ("association" with my ideas of organization) and
Trotsky. The latter answered Comrades Akimov and Lieber as follows:
"The Rules, he [Comrade Akimov] said, do not define the jurisdiction of the
Central Committee with enough precision. I cannot agree with him. On
the contrary, this definition is precise and means that inasmuch as the Party
is an entity, its control over the local committees must be ensured.
Comrade Lieber, borrowing my expression, said that the Rules were 'organ-
ized distrust. 'That is true. But I used this expression in reference to the
rules proposed by the Bund spokesmen, which represented 'organized
distrust* on the part of a section of the Party towards the whole Party.
Our Rules, on the other hand, represent the organized distrust of the Par-
ty towards all its sections, that is, control over all local, district, nation-
al and other organizations." (P. 158.)
296 V. I. LENIN
I. PARAGRAPH ONE OF THE RULES
In the footnote below * we quote the various formulations around which
an interesting debate arose at the Congress. This debate took up nearly
two sittings and ended with t»v roll-call votes (during the whole course of
the Congress, if I am not mistaken, there were only eight roll-call votes,
which were resorted to only in very important cases because of the great
loss of time they involved). The question at issue was undoubtedly one
of principle. The interest of the Congress in the debate was tremendous.
All the delegates voted — a rare occurrence at our Congress (as at any big con-
gress) and one that likewise testifies to the interest shown by the disputants.
What, then, was the sum and substance of the matter in dispute? I
have already said at the Congress and have since repeated it time and
again that "I by no means consider our difference [over §1] so vital as to
be a matter of life or death to the Party. We shall certainly not perish
because of an unfortunate clause in the Rules!" (P. 250.)** Taken by itself,
this difference, although it disclosed shades of principle, could never have
called forth that divergence (actually, to speak unreservedly, that split)
which took place after the Congress. But every slight difference may be-
come a big difference if it is insisted on, if it is put into the foreground, if
people set about searching for all the roots and branches of the difference.
Every slight difference may assume tremendous importance if it serves as
the starting point for a turn towards definite mistaken views, and if these
mistaken views, by virtue of new and additional divergences, are combined
with anarchist actions which bring the Party to the point of a split.
And that is just how matters stood in the present case. Now, the
question has been put as follows: was Martov 's formulation, which was sup-
ported by Axelrod, affected by his (or their) instability, wavering and poli-
tical vagueness, as I expressed it at the Party Congress (p. 333), by his
(or their) deviation towards Jauresism and anarchism, as Plekhanov sur-
mised at the League Congress (League Minutes, p. 102 and elsewhere);
or was my formulation, which was supported by Plekhanov, affected by a
wrong, bureaucratic, formalistic, pompadour, un-Social-Democratic con-
ception of centralism? Opportunism and anarchism, or bureaucracy and for-
malism?— that is the way the question is being put now that the slight
difference has become a big difference. And when discussing the pros and
cons of my formulation on their merits, we must bear in mind just this
statement of the question, which has been forced upon us all by the events.
* § 1 of my draft: "A Party member is one who accepts its program and who
supports the Party both financially and by personal participation in one of the
Party organizations."
§ 1 as formulated by Martov at the Congress and adopted by the Congress:
*A member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is one who accepts
its program, supports the Party financially and renders it regular personal assis-
tance under the direction of one of its organizations."
** Sec "Report on Party Rules," Lenin, Selected Works, Eng. cd., Vol. II.— Ed.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 297
Let us begin the examination of these pros and cons with an analysis
of the debate at the Congress. The first speech, that of Comrade Egorov,
is interesting only for the fact that his attitude (non liquet, it is still not
clear to me, I still do not know where the truth lies) is very characteristic
of the attitude of many delegates who found it difficult to grasp the
rights and wrongs of this really new and fairly complex and detailed
question. The next speech, that of Comrade Axclrod, at once raised
the question of principle. This was the first speech that Comrade
Axelrod made at the Congress on questions of principle, or for that mat-
ter, the first speech he made at all, and it can scarcely be claimed that his
debut with the celebrated "professor" was particularly fortunate. "I think,"
Comrade Axelrod said, "that we must draw a distinction between the con-
cepts Party and organization. Yet these two concepts are here being con-
fused. And the confusion is dangerous." This was the first argument against
my formulation. Examine it more closely. When I say that the Party
should be a sum (and not a mere arithmetical sum, but a complex) of organ-
izations^ docs that mean that I "confuse" the concepts Party and organi-
zation? Of course not. I thereby express clearly and precisely my wish, my
demand, that the Party, as the vanguard of the class, should be as organ-
ized as possible, that the Party should admit to its ranks only such elements
as lend thewAelvcx loaf least a minimum of organization. My opponent, on the
contrary, wants to confuse, to mix organized elements and unorganized
elements in the Party, persons who submit to direction and those who do not,
the advanced and the incorrigibly backward — for the corrigibly backward
may join the organization. Tins confusion is indeed dangerous. Comrade
Axelrod further cited the "strictly secret and centralized organizations of
the past" (the "Zewh/a i Volya" and the "Narodnaya Volya"): around them,
he said, "were grouped a large number of people who did not belong to the
organization but who helped it in one way or another and regarded them-
selves as Party members. . .. This principle should be even more strictly
observed in the Social-Democratic organization." Here we come to one of
* The word "organization** is usually employed in two senses, a broad and
a narrow one. In the narrow sense it signifies an individual nucleus of the human
collective body, even if constituted to only a minimum degree. In the broad
sense it signifies the sum of such nuclei welded into a single whole. For example,
the navy, the army, or the state represents at one and the same time a sum of
organizations (in the narrow sense of the word) and a variety of social organizations
(in the broad sense of the word). The Department of Education is an organization
(in the broad sense of the word) and consists of A number of organizations (in the
narrow sense ot the word). Similarly, the Party is an organization, and should be
an organization (in the broad sense of the word); at the same time, the Party should
consist of a number of various kinds of oiganizations (in the narrow sense of the
word). Therefore, when he spoke of drawing a distinction between the concepts
Party and organization, Comrade Axclrod, firstly, did not take account of the
difference between the broad and the narrow meaning of the word organization,
and, secondly, did not observe that he himself was confusing organized and un-
organized elements.
298 V. L LENIN
the nodal points of the matter: is "this principle" really a Social-Democrat-
ic one — this principle which allows people who do not belong to any
of the organizations of the Party and who only "help it in one way or an-
other" to call themselves Party members? And Plekhanov gave the only
possible reply to this question when he said: "Axel rod was wrong in citing
the 'seventies. At that time there was a well-organized and splendidly dis-
ciplined central body; around it there were the organizations of various
categories it had created; and outside these organizations there was nothing
but chaos, anarchy. The component elements of this chaos called them-
selves party members, but this rather damaged than benefited the cause. We
should not imitate the anarchy of the 'seventies, but avoid it." Thus "this
principle," which Comrade Axelrod wanted to pass off as a Social-Democrat-
ic one, is in reality an anarchist principle. To refute this, one must show
that control, direction and discipline are possible outside an organization;
that conferring the title of Party members on "the elements of chaos"
is necessary. The supporters of Comrade Martov 's formulation did not show,
and could not show, either of these things. Comrade Axelrod took as an
example "a professor who regards himself, as a Social-Democrat and
pronounces himself such. "To complete the thought contained in this exam-
ple, Comrade Axelrod should have gone on to tell us whether the organized
Social-Democrats regard this professor as a Social-Democrat. By failing to
raise this second question, Comrade Axelrod abandoned his argument half-
way. And, indeed, one thing or the other. Either the organized Social-
Democrats regard the professor in question as a Social -Democrat, in
which case why should they not assign him to some Social-Democratic
organization? For only if the professor were thus assigned would his "pro-
nouncement" answer to his actions, and not be empty talk (as professorial
pronouncements all too frequently are). Or the organized Social-Democrats
do not regard the professor as a Social-Democrat, in which case it would
be absurd, senseless and harmful to allow him the right to bear the honour-
able and responsible title of Party member. The matter therefore reduces
itself to the alternative: either the consistent application of the principle
of organization, or the sanctification of disunity and anarchy. Are we
to build the Party on the basis of the already formed and already
welded nucleus of Social- Democrats which brought about the Party Con-
gress, for instance, and which is to enlarge and multiply Party organiza-
tions of all kinds; or are we to content ourselves with the soothing phrase
that all who help are Party members? "If we adopt Lenin's formula,"
Comrade Axelrod continued, "we shall throw overboard a section of those
who, although they may not be directly admitted to the organization,
are nevertheless Party members." The confusion of concepts of which Com-
rade Axelrod wanted to accuse me, here stands out quite clearly in his
own case: he already takes it for granted that all who help are Party mem-
bers, whereas that is what the whole dispute is about, and our opponents
have still to prove the necessity and value of such an interpretation.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 299
What is the meaning of the phrase "throwing overboard," which at first
glance seems so terrible? Even if only members of organizations which are
recognized as Party organizations are regarded as Party members, still
people who cannot "directly" join any Party organization may work in an
organization which is not a Party organization but is associated with the
Party. Consequently, there can be no talk of throwing anybody overboard,
in the sense of preventing them from working, from taking part in the
movement. On the contrary, the stronger our Party organizations consisting
o£real Social-Democrats are, and the less wavering and instability there
is within the Party, the broader, the more varied, the richer and more fertile
will be the influence of the Party on the elements of the working-class
masses surrounding it and guided by it. After all, the Party, as the vanguard
of the working class, must not be confused with the entire class. And Com-
rade Axe Irod is guilty of just this confusion (which is characteristic of our
opportunist Economism in general) when he says: "We shall first of all,
of course, create an organization of the most active elements of the Party,
an organization of revolutionaries; but since we are the party of a class,
we must take care not to leave outside its ranks people who consciously,
although perhaps not very actively, associate themselves with that party."
Firstly, the active elements of the Social-Democratic Labour Party will in-
clude not only organizations of revolutionaries, but a whole number of work-
ers' organizations recognized as Party organizations. Secondly, how, by
what logic, does the conclusion that it is unnecessary to make any distinc-
tion between those who Mong to the Party and those who associate them-
selves with the Party follow from the fact that we are the party of a class?
Just the contrary: precisely because there are differences in degree of con-
sciousness and degree of activity, a distinction must be made in degree of
proximity to the Party. We are the Party of a class, and therefore almost
the entire class (and in times of war, in the period of civil war, the entire
class) should act under the leadership of our Party, should adhere to our
Party as closely as possible. But it would be Manilovism* and "khvostism"
to think that at any time under capitalism the entire class, or almost the
entire class, would be able to rise to the level of consciousness and activity
of its vanguard, of its Social-Democratic Party. No sensible Social-Demo-
crat has ever yet doubted that under capitalism even the trade union
organizations (which are more primitive and more comprehensible to the
undeveloped strata) are unable to embrace the entire, or almost the entire
working class. To forget the distinction between the vanguard and the
whole of the masses which gravitate towards it, to forget the con-
stant duty of the vanguard to raise ever wider strata to this most advanced
level, means merely to deceive oneself, to shut one's eyes to the immensity
* Manilovism — derived from Manilov, one of the characters depicted in Go-
gol's Dead Souls, characteristic of smug complacency, inertness, vapid phrase-
mongering.— Ed.
300 V. I. LENIN
of our tasks, and to narrow down these tasks. And it is just such a shutting
of one's eyes, it is just such forge tfulness, to obliterate the difference
between those who associate and those who belong, between those who are
conscious and active and those who only help.
To argue that we are the party of a class in justification of organization-
al vagueness, in justification of confusing organization with disorganiza-
tion is to repeat the mistake of Nadezhdin, who confused "the philosophical
and social-historical question of the 'depth ' of the 'roots * of the movement
with the technical and organizational question." It is this confusion,
wrought by the deft hand of Comrade Axclrod, that was then repeated
dozens of times by the speakers who defended Com radeMartov's formula-
tion. "The more widespread the title of Party member, the better," said
Martov, without explaining, however, what would be the advantage of a
widespread title which did not correspond to fact. Can it be denied that
control over Party members who do not belong to an organization is a mere
fiction? A widespread fiction is not beneficial, but harmful. "It would only
be a subject for rejoicing if every striker, every demonstrator, answering
for his actions, could proclaim himself a Party member." (P. 229.) Is
that so? Every striker should have the right to proclaim himself a Party
member? In this statement Comrade Martov at once reduces his mis-
take to an absurdity, by lowering Social-Democracy to the level of
mere strike-making, thereby repeating the misadventures of the Aki-
movs. It would only be a subject for rejoicing if the Social-Democrats
succeeded in directing every strike, for it is their direct and unquestion-
able duty to direct every manifestation of the class struggle of the pro-
letariat, and strikes are one of the most profound and most powerful
manifestations of that struggle. But we would be khvostists if we were to
identify this primary form of struggle, which ipso facto is no more than
a trade unionist form, with the all-round and conscious Social-Democrat-
ic struggle. We would be opportunistically legitimiiizing a patent falsehood
if we were to allow every striker the right "to proclaim himself a Party
member," for in the majority of cases such a "proclamation" would
be an outright falsehood. We would be consoling ourselves with
complacent daydreaming if we were to attempt to assure ourselves and
others that every striker can be a Social-Democrat and a member of the
Social-Democratic Party, in face of that infinite disunity, oppression
and stultification which under capitalism is bound to weigh down upon
such very broad strata of the "untaught," unskilled workers. It is this
very example of the "striker" that particularly brings out the difference
between the revolutionary striving to direct every strike in Social-Dem-
ocratic fashion and the opportunist phrasemongering which proclaims
every striker a Party member. We are the Party of a class inasmuch as
we in fact direct almost the entire, or even the entire, proletarian
class in Social-Democratic fashion; but only people like Akimov can
conclude from this that we must in word identify the Party and the class.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 301
"I am not afraid of a conspiratorial organization," said Comrade
Martov in this same speech; but, he added, "forme a conspiratorial organ-
ization has meaning only when it is enveloped by a broad Social-Demo-
cratic Labour Party. " (P. 239.) He should have said to be exact: when
it is enveloped by a broad Social-Democratic labour movement. And in
that form Comrade Martov 's proposition would have been not only indis-
putable, but a direct truism. I dwell on this point only because subsequent
speakers turned Comrade Martov 's truism into the very common and
very vulgar argument that Lenin wants "to confine the sum total of Party
members to the sum total of conspirators." This conclusion, which can
only provoke a smile, was drawn both by Comrade Posadovsky and by
Comrade Popov, and when it was taken up by Martynov and Akimov its
true character as an opportunist phrase became perfectly clear. Today
this same argument is being developed in the new Iskra by Comrade
Axelrod in order to acquaint the reading public with the new editorial
board's new views on organization. Even at the Congress, at the very
first sitting where the question of § 1 was discussed, I remarked that our
opponents wanted to employ this cheap weapon, and therefore issued
the warning in my speech (p. 240): "It should not be thought that Party
organizations must consist solely of professional revolutionaries. We need
the most diversified organizations of every type, rank and shade, from
extremely narrow and secret organizations to very broad, free, lose
Organ isationen." This is such an apparent and self-evident truth that
I considered it unnecessary to dwell upon it. ...
I had already pointed this out in What Is To Be Donet — and in "A Let-
ter to a Comrade" I developed this idea in greater detail. The factory
circles, I wrote there, "are particularly important to us: after all,
the main strength of the movement lies in the state of organization of
the workers in the large mills, for the large mills (and factories) contain
the predominant part of the working class, not only as to numbers but
even more as to influence, development and fighting capacity. Every
factory must be our fortress. . . . The factory sub-committee should en-
deavour to embrace the whole factory, the largest possible number of the
workers, by a network of all kinds of circles (or agents). . . . All groups,
circles, sub-committees, etc., should enjoy the status of committee in-
stitutions, or branches of a committee. Some of them will openly pro-
claim their wish to join the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party
and, if endorsed by the committee, will join the Party, will take upon them-
selves definite functions (on the instructions of, or in agreement with, the
committee), will undertake to obey the orders of the Party organs, will
receive the same rights a>s all Party members, will be regarded as immediate
candidates for election to the committee, etc. Others will not join the
R.S.D.L.P. and will have the status of circles formed by Party members
or associated with one or other Party group, etc." (Pp. 17-18.) The
words I have underscored make it particularly clear that the idea of my
302 V. I. LENIN
formulation of § 1 was already fully expressed in "A Letter to a Comrade. "
There the conditions for joining the Party are plainly indicated, namely:
1) a certain degree of organization, and 2) the endorsement of a Party
committee. A page later I roughly indicate also. what gxoups and organi-
zations should (or should not) be admitted to the Party, and for what
reasons: "Groups of literature distributors should belong to the
R.S.D.L.P. and know a certain number of its members and function-
aries. A group for the study of labour conditions and for the drawing up
of trade union demands need not necessarily belong to the R.S.D.L.P.
A group of students, officers or office employees engaged in self-education
in conjunction with one or two Party members should in some cases not
even be aware that these belong to the Party, etc." (Pp. 18-19.)
Depending on degree of organization in general and degree of secrecy
of organization in particular, roughly the following categories may be
distinguished: 1) organizations of revolutionaries; 2) organizations of
workers of the broadest and most varied kind (I confine myself to the
working class, taking it as self-evident that certain elements of other
classes will also be included here under certain conditions). These two
categories constitute the Party. Further, 3) organizations of workers
which are associated with the Party; 4) organizations of workers which
are not associated with the Party but actually submit to its control and
direction; 5) unorganized elements of the working class who also come
partly under the direction of the Social-Democratic Party, at any rate
during the big manifestations of the class struggle. That, approxi-
mately, is how the matter presents itself to me. From the point of view
of Comrade Martov, on the contrary, the border line of the Party remains
absolutely vague, for "every striker" may "proclaim himself a Party
member." What is the use of this vagueness? A widespread "title." Its
harm is that it introduces a disorganizing idea, the confusing of class and
Party.
In illustration of the general propositions we have adduced, let us
take a cursory glance at the subsequent discussion of § 1 at the Congress.
Comrade Brouckere (to the satisfaction of Comrade Martov) pronounced
himself in favour of my formulation, but his alliance with me, it appears,
in contradistinction to Comrade Akimov's alliance with Martov, was
based on a misunderstanding. Comrade Brouckere did "not agree with
the Rules as a whole, nor with their entire spirit" (p. 239) and defended
my formulation as the basis of the democracy which the supporters of the
Rabocheye Dyelo desire. Comrade Brouckere had not yet risen to the view
that in a political struggle it is sometimes necessary to choose the lesser
evil; Comrade Brouckere did not realize that it was useless to advocate
democracy at a Congress like ours. Comrade Akimov was more perspi-
cacious. He put the question quite rightly when he admitted that "Com-
rade Martov and Lenin are arguing as to which [formulation] would best
achieve their common aim" (p. 252). "Brouckere and I," he continued,
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 303
"want to choose the one which will least achieve that aim. From this angle
I choose Martov's formulation." And Comrade Akimov frankly explained
that he considered "their very aim" (that is, the aim of Plekhanov, Mar-
tov and myself, namely, the creation of a directing organization of revo-
lutionaries) "impracticable and harmful"; like Comrade Martynov,*
he advocated the idea of the Economists that "an organization of revo-
lutionaries" was unnecessary. He was "imbued with the belief that in
the end the realities of life will force their way into our Party organi-
zation, irrespective of whether you bar their path with Martov's formu-
lation or with Lenin's." It would not be worth while dwelling on this
"khvostist" conception of the "realities of life" if we did not encounter
it in the case of Comrade Martov too. In general, Comrade Martov's
second speech (p. 245) is so interesting as to be worth examining in
detail.
Comrade Martov 's first argument: control by the Party organizations
over Party members not belonging to them "is practicable, inasmuch as,
having assigned a function to somebody, the committee will be able to
watch it" (p. 245). This thesis is remarkably characteristic, for it "be-
trays," if one may say so, who needs Martov's formulation and who will
find it of service in fact — whether freelance intellectuals or workers'
groups and the worker masses. The fact is that two interpretations of
Martov's formulation are possible: 1) that anyone who renders the Party
regular personal assistance under the guidance of one of its organizations
is entitled "to proclaim himself" (Comrade Martov 's own words) a Party
member; 2) that every Party organization is entitled to regard anyone as
a Party member who renders it regular personal assistance under its
direction. It is only the first interpretation that really gives "every strik-
er" the opportunity to call himself a Party member, and therefore
it alone immediately won the hearts of the Liebers, Akimovs and Marty-
novs. But it is obvious that this interpretation is but an empty phrase,
because it would fit the entire working class, and the difference between
Party and class would be obliterated; control over and direction of "every
striker" can only be spoken of "symbolically." That is why, in his second
speech, Comrade Martov at once slipped into the second interpretation
(even though, be it said in parenthesis, it was directly rejected by the
* Comrade Martynov, however, was anxious to draw a distinction between
himself and Comrade Akimov; he was anxious to show that conspiratorial does
not mean secret, that behind the two different words were concealed two different
concepts. What the difference is, was explained neither by Comrade Martynov
nor by Comrade Axelrod, who is now following in his footsteps. Comrade Martynov
tried to "make out" that I had not — for example in What Is To Be Done? (as well
as in the Tasks) — resolutely declared my opposition to "confining the polit-
ical struggle to conspiracies." Comrade Martynov was anxious to have his hearers
forget that the people I was combating did not see any necessity for an organiza-
tion of revolutionaries, just as Comrade Akimov does not see it now.
304 V. I. LENIN
Congress when it turned down Kostich's resolution — p. 255), namely,
that a committee would assign functions and watch the way they were
carried out. Of course, no such special assignments would ever be made
to the mass of the workers, to the thousands of proletarians (of whom Com-
rade Axelrod and Comrade Martynov spoke) — they would frequently
be given to those professors whom Comrade Axelrod mentioned, to those
high school students about whom Comrade Lieber and Comrade Popov
were so concerned (p. 241), and to the revolutionary youth to whom Com-
rade Axelrod referred in his second speech (p. 242). In a word, Comrade
Martov's formula would either remain a dead letter, an empty phrase,
or it would be of benefit mainly and almost exclusively to the "intellectu-
als who are thoroughly imbued with bourgeois individualism" and who do
not wish to join the organization. Martov's formulation ostensibly de-
fends the interests of the broad strata of the proletariat, but in fact> it
serves the interests of the bourgeois intellectuals, who fight shy of prole-
tarian discipline and organization. No one will undertake to deny that
it is precisely its individualism and incapacity for discipline and organiz-
ation that in general distinguishes the intelligentsia as a separate stra-
tum of modern capitalist society (see, for example, Kautsky's well-known
articles on the intelligentsia). This, incidentally, is a feature which
unfavourably distinguishes this social stratum from the proletariat;
it is one of the reasons for the flabbiness and instability of the intellec-
tual, from which the proletariat is so often made to suffer; and this char-
acteristic of the intellectual is intimately bound up with his customary
mode of life, his mode of earning a livelihood, which in a great many
respects approximates to the petty-bourgeois mode of existence (working in
isolation or in very small groups, etc.). Lastly, it is not fortuitous that
the defenders of Comrade Markov's formulation were obliged to cite the
example of professors and high school students! It was not the champions
of a broad proletarian struggle who, in the controversy over § 1, took the
field against the champions of a radically conspiratorial organization
as Comrades Martynov and Axelrod thought, but the supporters of bour-
geois-intellectual individualism , who came into conflict with the support-
ers of proletarian organization and discipline.
Comrade Popov said: "Everywhere, in St. Petersburg as in Nikolayev
or Odessa, as the representatives from these towns testify, there are doz-
ens of workers who are distributing literature and carrying on word-of-
mouth agitation but who cannot be members of an organization. They
may be assigned to an organization, but they cannot be regarded as
members." (P. 241.) Why they cannot be members of an organization
Comrade Popov did not divulge. I have already quoted the passage from
44 A Letter to a Comrade" showing that the admission of all such workers
(by the hundred, not the dozen) to an organization is possible and essen-
tial, and, moreover, that a great many of these organizations can and
should belong to the Party.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 3°&
Comrade Martov 's second argument: "Jn Lenin's opinion there should
be no organizations in the Party other than Party organizations. . . ."
Quite true! . . . "In my opinion, on the contrary, such organizations
should exist. Life creates and breeds organizations quicker than we can
include them in the hierarchy of our militant organization of professional
revolutionaries. ..." That is untrue in two respects: 1) The number of
effective organizations of revolutionaries that "life" breeds is far less
than we need and the working-class movement requires; 2) our Party
should be a hierarchy not only of organizations of revolutionaries, but
of a large number of workers' organizations as well. . . . "Lenin thinks
that the Central Committee will confer the title of Party organization
only on such as are fully reliable in the matter of principles. But Comrade
Brouckere understands very well that life [sicl] will claim its own and
that the Central Committee, in order not to leave a multiplicity of organ-
izations outside the Party, will have to legitimatize them despite their
utterly unreliable character; that is why Comrade Brouckere associates
himself with Lenin. ..." Of course, if the Central Committee had ab-
solutely to consist of people who were not guided by their own opinions
but by what others might say, then "life" would "claim its own" in the
sense that the most backward elements of the Party would gain the upper
hand. But no intelligent reason can be cited which would induce a sen^
sible Central Committee to admit "unreliable" elements to the Party.
By this very reference to "life," which "breeds" unreliable elements,
Comrade Martov patently revealed the opportunist character of his plan
of organization! . . . "But I think," he continued, "that if such an organ-
ization (one that is not quite reliable) is prepared to accept the Party
program and Party control, we may admit it to the Party without thereby
making it a Party organization. I would consider it a great triumph
for our Party, if, for example, some union of 'independents' were to de-
clare that they accept the views of Social-Democracy and its program and
wanted to join the Party; which does not mean, however, that we would
include the union in a Party organization. . . ." Such is the muddle
Martov 's formulation leads to: a non-Party organization belonging to the
Party! Only picture his scheme: the Party=l) an organization of revo-
lutionaries, -f 2) organizations of workers recognized as Party organiza-
tions,-}-3) organizations of workers not recognized as Party organizations
(consisting principally of "independents "),+ 4) individuals performing
various functions — professors, students, etc., -f-5) "every striker." Along-
side of this remarkable plan one can only put the words of Comrade
Lieber: "Our task is not only to organize an organization [!!]; we can and
should organize a party." (P. 241.) Yes, of course, we can and should
do this, but what it requires is not meaningless words about "organiz-
ing organizations," but the plain demand that Party members, should
work to create an organization in fact. He who talks about "organiz-
ing a party" and yet defends the use of the word party to screen
20—685
306 V. I. LENIN
disorganization and disunity of every kind is just indulging in empty
jabber.
"Our formulation," Comrade Martov said, "expresses the desire to
have a series of organizations standing between the organization of revo-
lutionaries and the masses." It does not. Martov 's formulation does
not express this truly essential desire, for it does not offer a stimulus to
organization, does not contain a demand for organization, and does not
separate the organized from the unorganized. All it offers is a title, and
in thi» connection we cannot but recall Comrade Axelrod Js words: "no
decree can forbid them" (circles of revolutionary youth and the like)
"and individuals to call themselves Social-Democrats" (a sacred truth!)
"and even to regard themselves as part of the Party., . . ." There he is
absolutely wrongl You cannot, and there is no need, to forbid anyone to
call himselr a Social-Democrat, for in its direct sense this word only sig-
nifies a system of convictions, and not definite organizational relations.
As to forbidding individual circles and persons "to regard themselves as
part of the Party," that can and should be done when such circles and
persons injure the Party, corrupt it and disorganize it. It would be absurd
to speak of the Party as a whole, as a political magnitude, if it could
not "forbid by decree" a circle to "regard itself as part" of the whole!
What otherwise would be the point of defining the procedure and condi-
tions of expulsion from the Party? Comrade Axelrod reduced Comrade
Martov 's fundamental mistake to an obvious absurdity; he even elevat-
ed this mistake to an opportunist theory when he added: "In Lenin's
formulation, § 1 is a direct contradiction in principle to the very nature [ ! !]
and aims of the Social-Democratic Party of the proletariat" (p. 243).
This means no more and no less than that to make higher demands of the
Party than of the class is contradictory in principle to the very nature
of the aims of the proletariat. It is not surprising that Akimov was heart
and soul in favour of such a theory.
It should be said in fairness that Comrade Axelrod, who now desires
to convert this mistaken formulation, one obviously tending towards
opportunism, into the germ of new views, at the Congress, on the contrary
expressed a readiness to "bargain," by saying: "But I observe that I am
hammering at an open door, because Comrade Lenin, with his peripheral
circles which are to be regarded as part of the Party organization, goes
out to meet my demand. . . ." (And not only with the peripheral circles, but
with every kind of workers' union: c/. p. 242 of the Minutes, the speech
of Comrade Strakhov, and the passages from "A Letter to a Comrade"
quoted above.) "There still remain the individuals, but here, too, we could
bargain." I replied to Comrade Axelrod that, generally speaking, I was
not averse to bargaining, and I must now explain in what rense this was
meant. As regards the individuals — all those professors, high school
students, etc. — I should be inclined least of all to make concessions;
but if doubts were raised about the workers' organizations, I would have
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 307
agreed (despite the utter lack of foundation for such doubts, as I have
shown above) to add to my § 1 a note to the following effect: "As large
a number as possible of workers ' organizations which accept the Program
and Rules of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party should be
included among the Party organizations." Strictly speaking, of course,
the place for such a wish is not in the Rules, which should be confined
to legal definitions, but in explanatory commentaries and pamphlets
(and I have already stated that I gave such explanations in my pamphlets
long before the Rules were drawn up); but, at least, such a note would
not contain even a shadow of a wrong idea capable of leading to disorgan-
ization, not a shadow of the opportunist arguments * and "anarchist con-
ceptions" that are undoubtedly to be found in Comrade Martov's for-
mulation.
The latter expression, given by me in quotation marks, belongs to
Comrade Pavlovich, who quite justly characterized as anarchism the rec-
ognition of "irresponsible and self-styled Party members." "Translated
into simple language," said Comrade Pavlovich, explaining my formu-
lation to Comrade Lieber, it means that "if you want to be a Party member
you must recognize organizational relations, too, not only platonically."
With no less justice, Comrade Pavlovich pointed to the contradiction
between Comrade Martov's formulation and the indisputable precept
of scientific Socialism which Comrade Martov quoted so unhappily: "Our
Party is the conscious spokesman of an unconscious process." Exactly
so. And for this very reason it is wrong to want "every striker" to have the
* To this category of arguments, which inevitably arise when attempts'
are made to justify Martov's formulation, belongs, in particular, Trotsky's
statement (pp. 248 and 346) that "opportunism is created by more complex (or:
is determined by more profound) causes than a clause in the Rules; it is brought
about by the relative level of development of the bourgeois democracy and the
proletariat " The point is not that clauses in the Rules may give rise to oppor-
tunism; the point is to forge with the help of the Rules a more or a less trenchant
weapon against opportunism. The profounder its causes, the more trenchant
should this weapon be. Therefore, to justify a formulation which opens the door
to opportunism by the fact that opportunism has "profound causes" is khvost-
ism of the purest water. When Trotsky was opposed to Comrade Lieber, he
understood that the Rules constituted the "organized distrust" of the whole
towards the part, of the vanguard towards the backward detachment; but when
Trotsky found himself on Comrade Lieber 's side, he forgot this and even-
began to justify the weakness and instability of our organization of this dis-
trust (distrust of opportunism) by talking about "complex causes," the "level
of development of the proletariat," etc. Here is another of Trotsky's argu-
ments: "It is much easier for the intellectual youth, organized in one way
or another, to enter themselves [my italics] on the rolls of the Party." Just so.
That is why it is the formulation by which even unorganized elements may pro-
claim themselves Party members that suffers from the vagueness typical of the
intellectual, and not my formulation which removes the right to "enter oneself
on the tolls. Trotsky says that if the Central Committee were "not to rccog-
20*
308 V. I. LENIN
right to call himself a Party member, for if "every strike" were not
only a spontaneous expression of a powerful class instinct and of the
class struggle, which is inevitably leading to the social revolution, but
a conscious expression of that process, then ... the general strike would
not be anarchist phrasemongering, then our Party would forthwith and
at once embrace the whole working class, and, consequently, would at once
put an end to the entire bourgeois society. If it is to be a conscious
spokesman tn/acf, the Party must be able to work out such organizational
relations as will ensure a definite level of consciousness, and systematically
raise this level. "If we go the way of Martov," Comrade Pavlovich said,
"we must first of all delete the clause on accepting the program, for be-
fore a program can be accepted it must be mastered and understood. . . .
Acceptance of the program presupposes a fairly high level of political
consciousness." We will never consent to have support of Social-Democracy,
participation in the struggle it is directing, artificially restricted by any
demand (mastery, understanding, and the rest), for this participation
itself, its very manifestation, promotes both consciousness and the instinct
for organization; but inasmuch as we have joined together in a party in
order to carry on systematic work, we must see to it that it is system-
atic.
That Comrade Pavlovich 's warning regarding the program was not
superfluous became apparent at once, in the course of that very same sit-
ting. Comrades Akimov and Lieber, who got Comrade Martov 's formu-
lation carried,* at once betrayed their true nature by demanding (pp.
254-55) that as regards the program too all that was required (for "mem-
nize" an organization of opportunists it would only be because of the char-
acter of certain persons, and that once these persons were known as political
individuals they would not be cj anger ous and could be removed by a general
Party boycott. This is only true of cases when people have to be removed from
the Party (and only half true at that, because an organized party removes members
by a vote and not by a boycott). It is absolutely untrue of the far more frequent
cases when removal would be absurd, and when all that is required is control. For
purposes of control, the Central Committee might, on certain conditions, delib-
erately admit to the Party an organization which was not quite reliable but
which was capable of working; it might do so with the object of testing it, of
trying to direct it into the true path, of correcting its partial aberrations by its
own guidance, etc. This would not be dangerous if in general "self-entering" on
the Party Tolls were not allowed. It would often be useful for an open and reapon-
sible, controlled, expression (and discussion) of mistaken views and mistaken
tactics. "But if legal definitions are to correspond to actual relations, Comrade
Lenin's formulation must be rejected," said Trotsky, and again he spoke like
an opportunist. Actual relations are not a dead thing, they live and develop.
Legal definitions may correspond to the progressive development of these rela-
tions, but they may also (if these definitions are bad ones) "correspond" to retro-
gression or stagnation. The latter is the "case" with Comrade Martov.
* The vote was 28 for and 22 against. Of the eight anti-I*fcra-ites, seven were
for Martov and one for me. Without the aid of the opportunists, Comrade Martov
would not have carried through his opportunist formulation.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 809
bership" in the Party) was platonic recognition, recognition only of its
"basic principles." "Comrade Akimov's motion is quite logical from Com-
rade Martov's standpoint," Comrade Pavlovich remarked.
The grouping of votes over paragraph one of the Rules revealed a
phenomenon of exactly the same type as the equality of languages epi-
sode: the falling away of one-quarter (approximately) of the Iskra-ite
majority made possible the victory of the anti-/$fcra-ites, who were backed
by the "Centre". . . .
[Chapters «7, K, L and M have been omitted in the present edition since
they deal almost exclusively with a description of the petty controversies
over details of the rules or controversies over the personal composition
of the central party institutions. Neither the one nor the other are of in-
terest to the contemporary reader or important in elucidating the dif-
ferences between the "minority" and the "majority." We give only the
latter part of Chapter M which refers to a question of tactics touched on
as far back as the Second Party Congress.]
An interesting, but, unfortunately, all too brief controversy in which
a question was discussed on its merits arose in connection with Starovyer's
resolution on the liberals. As one may judge from the signatures to it
(pp. 357 and 358), it was adopted by the Congress because three of the
supporters of the "majority" (Braun, Orlov and Ossipov) voted both
for it and for Plekhanov's resolution, not perceiving the irreconcilable
contradiction between the two. The irreconcilable contradiction is not
apparent at a first glance, because Plekhanov's resolution lays down a gener-
al principle, outlines a definite attitude as regards both principles and tac-
tics towards bourgeois liberalism in Russia , whereas Starovyer's attempts to
define the concrete conditions in which "temporary agreements" would be per-
missible with "liberal or liberal-democratic trends." The subjects of the two
resolutions are different. But Starovyer's suffers from political vagueness,
and is consequently petty and shallow. It does not define the class meaning
of Russian liberalism, it does not indicate the definite political trends in
which it is expressed, it does not tell the proletariat what should be the
major tasks of the latter 's propaganda and agitation in relation to these
definite trends, it confuses (owing to its vagueness) such different things
as the student movement and Csvobozhdeniye,* it is too shallow, casuisti-
cally prescribing three concrete conditions under which "temporary agree-
ments11 would be permissible. Here, as in many other cases, political
* Osvobozhdeniye — a bourgeois liberal group organized- in 1902 which served
as the nucleus of the subsequent major bourgeois party in Russia — the Consti-
tutional Democrats. It published a magazine abroad under the same title, founded
and edited by Strwye, which was illegally distributed in Russia,— -Ed,
310 V. I. LENIN
vagueness leads to casuistry. The absence of any general principle and
the attempt to enumerate "conditions" result in a shallow and, strictly
speaking, incorrect formulation of these conditions. Just examine Staro-
vyer's three conditions: 1) "the liberal or liberal-democratic trends" must
"clearly and unambiguously declare that in their struggle against the
autocratic government they will resolutely side with the Russian Social-
Democrats." What is the difference between the liberal and liberal-
democratic trends? The resolution furnishes no material for a reply to
this question. Is it not that the liberal trends voice the position of the
politically least progressive sections of the bourgeoisie, while the liberal-
democratic trends voice the position of the more progressive sections of
the bourgeoisie and of the petty bourgeoisie? If that is so, can Comrade
Starovyer possibly think that the sections of the bourgeoisie which are
least progressive (but nevertheless progressive, for otherwise they could
not be called liberal at all) can "resolutely side with the Social-Democrats"?
That is absurd, and even if the spokesmen of such a trend were to "declare
so clearly and unambiguously" (an absolutely impossible assumption),
we, the party of the proletariat, would be obliged not to believe them. Being
a liberal and resolutely siding with the Social-Democrats are two mutually
exclusive things.
Further, let us assume a case where the "liberal and liberal-democrat-
ic trends" clearly and unambiguously declare that in their struggle against
the autocracy they resolutely side with the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Such an assumption is far less unlikely than Comrade Starovyer 's (owing
to the bourgeois-democratic nature of the Socialist-Revolutionary trend).
It follows from the meaning of his resolution, because of its vagueness and
casuistry, that in a case like this temporary agreements with such liberals
would be impermissible. Yet this inevitable deduction from Comrade
Starovyer 's resolution would lead to a downright false conclusion. Tem-
porary agreements are permissible with the Socialist- Revolutionaries
(see the resolution of the Congress on the latter), and, consequently, with
liberals who side with the Socialist- Revolutionaries.
Second condition: if these trends "do not put forward in their programs
demands running counter to the interests of the working class or the de-
mocracy in general, or demands which obscure their minds." Here we
have the same mistake again: there never have been, nor can there be, lib-
eral-democratic trends which did not put forward in their programs de-
mands that run counter to the interests of the working class and obscure
their (the proletarians') minds. Even one of the most democratic sections
of our liberal-democratic trend, the Socialist- Revolutionaries, put
forward in their program — a muddled^progra-m, like all liberal programs —
demands that run counter to the interests of the working class and obscure
their minds. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that it is essential
"to expose the limitations and inadequacy of the bourgeois emancipation
movement," but not that temporary agreements are impermissible.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 311
Lastly, in the general form in which it is presented, Comrade Staro-
vyer's third "condition" (that the liberal- democrats should make univer-
sal, equal, secret and direct suffrage the slogan of their struggle) is wrong:
it would be unwise to declare impermissible in all cases temporary and par-
tial agreements with liberal-democratic trends which put forward as
their slogan the demand for a constitution with a qualified suffrage, for
a "curtailed" constitution generally. As a matter of fact, this is just the
category to which the Osvobozhdeniye "trend" belongs, but it would be po-
litical short-sightedness incompatible with the principles of Marxism
to tie one's hands in advance by forbidding "temporary agreements"
even with the most timorous liberals.
To sum up: Comrade Starovyer Js resolution, to which Comrades Martov
and Axelrod subscribed their signatures, is a mistake, and the Third Con-
gress would be wise to rescind it. It suffers from the political vagueness
of its theoretical and tactical position, from the casuistry of the practical
"conditions" it stipulates. It confuses two questions: 1) the exposure
of the "anti-revolutionary and anti-proletarian" features of all liberal-
democratic trends and the necessity to combat these features, and 2) the
conditions for temporary and partial agreements with any of these trends.
It does not give what it should (an analysis of the class meaning of liber-
alism), and gives what it should not (a prescription of "conditions").
It is absurd in general to draw up detailed "conditions" for temporary
agreements at a Party congress, when even the direct partner, the other
party to such possible agreements, is unknown; and even if the other party
were known, it would be a hundred times more rational to leave the
definition of the "conditions" for a temporary agreement to the central
institutions of the Party, as the Congress did in relation to the Social-
ist-Revolutionary "trend" (see Plekhanov's amendment to the end of
Comrade Axelrod 's resolution — Minutes, pp. 362 and 15).
As to the objections of the "minority" to Plekhanov's resolution,
Comrade Martov 's only argument was: Plekhanov's resolution "ends
with the paltry conclusion that a certain writer should be exposed. Would
this not be using a sledgehammer to kill a fly?" (P. 358.) This argument,
whose emptiness is concealed by a smart phrase — "paltry conclusion" —
is another specimen of pompous phrasemongering. Firstly, Plekhanov's
resolution speaks of "exposing in the eyes of the proletariat the limita-
tions and inadequacy of the bourgeois emancipation movement wherever
such limitations and inadequacy manifest themselves." Hence Comrade
Martov's assertion (at the League Congress; Minutes, p. 88) that "all
attention is to be directed only to Struve, only to one liberal" is the sheer-
est nonsense. Secondly, to compare Mr. Struve to a "fly" when the possi-
bility of temporary agreements with the Russian liberals is in question,
is to sacrifice an elementary political truth for a smart phrase. No,
Mr. Struve is not a fly, but a political magnitude; and it is not because he
personally jj gflcji a big figure th^t he is a pp.litica.1 magnitude, but because
312 V. I. LENIN
of his position as the sole representative of Russian liberalism— of liber-
alism that is at all effectual and organized — in the illegal world. There-
fore, whoever talks of the Russian liberals and of what should be the
attitude of our Party towards them, and loses sight of Mr. Struve and of
Osvobozhdeniye 9 is just talking for the sake of talking. Or perhaps Comrade
Martov will be good enough to point to even one single "liberal or liberal-
democrajic trend" in Russia which could be even remotely compared today
with the Osvobozhdeniye trend? It would be interesting to see him tryl
"Struve 's name means nothing to the workers," said Comrade Kostrov,
supporting Comrade Martov. I hope Comrade Kostrov and Comrade Martov
will not be offended — but that argument is fully in the style of Akimov.
It is like the argument about the proletariat in the genitive case.*
To which workers does "Struve 's name mean nothing" (like the name
of Osvobozhdeniye , mentioned in Comrade Plekhanov's resolution alongside
of Mr. Struve)? To those who are very little acquainted, or not at all
acquainted, with the "liberal and liberal-democratic trends" in Russia.
One asks, what should have been the attitude of our Party Congress to such
workers: should it have instructed Party members to acquaint these work-
ers with the only definite liberal trend in Russia; or should it have re-
frained from mentioning names with which the workers are little acquainted
only because they are little acquainted with politics? If Comrade Kostrov,
having taken one step in the wake of Comrade Akimov, does not want to
take another step, he will answer this question in the former sense. And
having answered it in the former sense, he will see how groundless his
argument was. At any rate, the words "Struve" and "Osvobozhdeniye"
in Plekhanov's resolution are likely to mean much more to the workers
than the words "liberal and liberal-democratic trend" in Starovyer's
resolution.
Today the Russian worker cannot obtain a practical acquaintance with
the political trends in our liberal movement that are at all frank, except
through Osvobozhdeniye. The legal liberal literature is unsuitable for
this purpose because it is so nebulous. And we must as assiduously as pos-
sible (and among the broadest possible masses of workers) direct the weap-
on of our criticism against the followers of Osvobozhdeniye, so that when
the future revolution breaks out, the Russian proletariat may, with the
real criticism of weapons, paralyse the inevitable attempts of the
Osvobozhdeniye gentry to curtail the democratic character of the
revolution.
* During the discussion of the Party program at the Congress, the "Economist"
Akimov (V. Makhnovets) declared that one of the defects of the Iskra's draft
program, a defect which showed that its authors had forgotten the interests of the
proletariat, was that it nowhere mentioned the word "proletariat" in the nomi-
native case, as a subject, but only in the genitive case, in combination with the
word "party" ("party of the proletariat "). Thjs statement was greeted by a
outburst of laughter,—^,
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 313
N. GENERAL PICTURE OF THE STRUGGLE AT THE CONGRESS.
THE REVOLUTIONARY AND OPPORTUNIST WINGS
OF THE PARTY
We must now sum up, so that we may, on the basis of the entire Con-
gress material, answer the following question: what elements, groups and
shades went to make up the final majority and minority which were des-
tined for a time to become the main division in the Party? We must sum
up all the material relating to the shades of opinion on matters of princi-
ple, theory and tactics which the minutes of the Congress provide in such
abundance. Without a general "summary," without a general picture of
the Congress as a whole, and of all the principal groupings during the
voting, this material is too disjointed, too disconnected, so that at first
sight some groupings seem to be casual, especially to one who does not
take the trouble to make an independent and comprehensive study of the
minutes of the Congress (and how many readers have taken that troub-
In English parliamentary reports we often meet the characteristic
word "division." The House "divided" into such and such a majority and
minority — it is said when an issue is voted. The "division" of our Social-
Democratic House on the various issues discussed at the Congress presents
a picture of the struggle inside the Party, of its shades of opinions and
groups, that for its completeness and accuracy is unique and invaluable.
To make the picture more graphic, to obtain a real picture instead of a
heap of disconnected, disjointed and isolated facts and incidents, to put
a stop to the endless and senseless controversies over separate divisions
(who voted for whom and who supported whom?), I have decided to try
to depict all the basic types of "divisions" at our Congress in the form of
a diagram. This will probably seem strange to a great many people,
but I doubt whether any other method can be found that would really
generalize and summarize the results in the most complete and accurate
manner possible. Whether a particular delegate voted for or against a
given motion can be determined with absolute accuracy in cases when a
roll-call vote was taken; and in certain important cases, even when
no roll-call vote was taken, it can be determined from the minutes with a
very high degree of probability, with a sufficient degree of approximation
to the truth. If we take into account all the roll-call votes and all the other
votes on issues of any importance (as judged, for example, by the thor-
oughness and warmth of the debates), we shall obtain a picture of the
struggle within our Party that will be as objective as the material at our
disposal permits. In doing so, instead of trying to give a photograph,
i.e.9 an image of each vote separately, we shall try to give a picture,
i.e., to present all the main types of voting, ignoring relatively unimpor-
tant exceptions and variations which would only confuse matters. In any
case, anybody wilj be able with the aid of the minutes to check every
814 V. I. LENIN
detail of our picture, to supplement it with any particular vote he likes,
in a word, to criticize it not only by arguments, doubts and references
to isolated cases, but by drawing a different picture on the basis of the
same material.
In marking on the diagram every delegate who took part in the vot-
ing, we shall indicate by special shading the four main groups which
we have graced in detail throughout the course of the debates at the Con-
gress, viz., 1) the /s&ra-ites of the majority; 2) the /sfcra-ites of the minor-
ity; 3) the "Centre," and 4) the anti-/$fcra-ites. We have seen the differ-
ence in shades of principle between these groups in a host of instances,
and if anyone does not like the names of the groups, which remind lovers
of zigzags too much of the Iskra organization and the Iskra trend, let us
remark that it is not the name that matters. Now that we have traced the
shades through all the debates at the Congress it is easy to substitute for
the already established and familiar Party appellations (which jar on
the ears of some) a description of the essence of the differences between the
groups. Were this substitution made, we would obtain the following
names for these same four groups: 1) consistent revolutionary Social-
Democrats; 2) minor opportunists; 3) middling opportunists; and 4) ma-
jor opportunists (major according to our Russian standards).
We shall now proceed to give a detailed explanation of the types of
vote which have been "snapped" on this diagram (see diagram: General
Picture of the Struggle at the Congress).
The first type of vote (A) covers cases when the "Centre" joined with
the Iskra-ites against the anti-/s&ra-ites or a part of them. It includes the
vote on the program as a whole (Comrade Akimov alone abstained, all
the others voted for); the vote on the resolution condemning federation
in principle (all voted for, except the five Bundists); the vote on §2 of the
Bund rules (the five Bundists voted against us; five abstained, viz.: Marty-
nov, Akimov, Brouckere and Makhov, the latter with two votes, the rest
were with us); it is this vote that is represented in diagram A. Further,
the three votes on the question of endorsing the Iskra as the central organ
of the Party were also of this type: the editors (five votes) abstained; in
all the three divisions two voted against (Akimov and Brouckere) and, in
addition, when the vote on the motives for endorsing the Iskra was taken,
the five Bundists and Comrade Martynov abstained.*
This type of vote provides an answer to a very interesting and important
question, namely, when did the Congress "Centre" vote with the /sfcra-ites?
* Why was the vote on § 2 of the Bund rules taken as an illustration in the
diagram? Because the votes on the question of endorsing the Iskra were less com-
plete, while the votes on the program and on the question of federation refer to
political decisions of a less clearly defined character. Speaking generally, the
choice of any other one. of a number of votes of the same type will not in the least
affect the main features of the pictUfC, as, Anyone may easily see by making the
corresponding changes,
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK
315
GENERAL PICTURE OF THE STRUGGLE AT THE CONGRESS
I II I li'l
t *
s ?
2 £
s s
*) O
E *> S2
a "* t *-
^ t i «
z t-
±2 ^2 CJ
S5-
= ls
z I 2
^i^
o < -
K a ^
£ < =
5 * £
ui O 5
3 gl x
o —I ^
5 3 i
to <' g
S ° ^
2 z co
CO <
to aci J3
u. i i
gag
f ^ o
Q S =:
* O ui
* § 5
^ r m
** 32
« 2 .
5 > x
g a, ui
**• Q ui
SSJE
K Sz
fe o "
OOO
X u, g
o z 5
< o <
* 5 a
*l°
S?o
ui O
o «^
> tf 2
^ u a
O < N.
CQ o
Z ui
816 V. I. LENIN
Either when the anti-"Iskra" -ites, too, were with us, with a few exceptions
(adoption of the program, or endorsement of the Iskra without the motives
stated), or else when it involved the sort of statement which was not in itself
a direct committal to a definite political position (recognition of the organ-
izing work of the Iskra was not in itself a committal to carry out its organ-
izational policy in relation to particular groups; rejection of the princi-
ple of federation did not preclude abstention from voting on a specific
scheme of federation, as we have seen in the case of Comrade Makhov).
We have already seen, when speaking of the significance of the groupings
at the Congress in general, how falsely this matter is put in the official
account of the official Iskra, which (through the mouth of Comrade Mar-
tov) slurs and glosses over the difference between the Iskra-ites and the
"Centre," between the consistent revolutionary Social-Democrats and
the opportunists, by citing cases when the anti-" Iskra" -ites, too, sided
with us\ Even the most "Right-wing" of the opportunists in the German
and French Social-Democratic parties never vote against such points as
the adoption of the program as a whole.
The second type of division (B) covers the cases when the /£&ra-ites,
consistent and inconsistent, voted together against all the anti-/sfcra-ites
and the entire "Centre." These were mostly cases that involved giving
effect to definite and specific plans of the Iskra policy, of endorsing the
Iskra in fact and not only in word. They include the Organization Committee
episode;* the question whether the position of the Bund in the Party should
be the first item on the agenda; the dissolution of the Yuzhny Rdbochy
group; the two votes on the agiarian program, and, sixthly and lastly,
the vote against the Foreign Union of Russian Social-Democrats (Rabocheye
Dyelo), that is, the recognition of the League as the only Party organization
abroad. In cases like these the old, pre- Party, circle spirit, the interests of
the opportunist organizations or groups, the narrow conception of Marxism,
were at issue with the strictly consistent principles of the policy of revolu-
tionary Social-Democracy, the Iskra-ites of the minority still sided with
us in a number of cases, in a number of exceedingly important votes (im-
portant from the standpoint of the Organization Committee, Yuzhny
* It is this vote that is depicted in Diagram B: the Isfcra-ites secured thirty-
two votes; the Bund 1st resolution sixteen. It should be pointed out that not one
of the votes of this type was by roll-call. The way the individual delegates voted
can only be established — although to a very high degree of probability — by two
sets of evidence: 1) in the debate the speakers of both groups of Jskra-ites spoke
in favour, those of the ant i-Iakra- ites and the Centre against; 2) the number of
votes cast in favour was always very close tp thirty-three. Nor should h be forgotten
that when analysing the debates at the Congress we pointed $ut, quite apart from
the voting, a number of cases when the "Centre" sided ^ijth the ant i'/ife?^ ites
(the opportunists) against us. Some of these issues were: the absolute valu% of
'democratic demands, whether we should support the opposition elements,. restive*
tion of centralism, etc,
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 31?
Rabochy and Rabocheye Dyelo) . . . until their own circle spirit and their own
inconsistencies came on the carpet. The "divisions" of this type make it
quite clear that on a number of issues involving the practical application
of our principles, the Centre joined forces with the anti-"Iskra"-ites9 dis-
playing a much greater kinship with them than with us, a greater incli-
nation in practice towards the opportunist than towards the revolutionary
wing of Social-Democracy. Those who were Iskra-ites in name but were
ashamed to be Iskra-ites revealed their true nature; and the struggle that
inevitably ensued caused no little irritation which obscured from the least
thoughtful and most impressionable the significance of the shades of prin-
ciple revealed in the course of the struggle. But now that the ardour of bat-
tle has somewhat abated and the minutes remain as an unbiased extract of a
series of heated battles, only those who will not see can fail to perceive
that the alliance of the Makhovs and Egorovs with the Akimovs and
Liebers was not, and could not be, casual.
The distinguishing feature of the third type of vote at the Congress,
represented by the three remaining parts of the diagram (C, D and E),
is that a small section of the "Iskra"-ites broke away and went over to the
anti-"Iskra"-ites, who accordingly gained the victory (as long as they
remained at the Congress). In order to trace with the fullest accuracy the
development of this coalition of the /sfcra-ite minority with the anti-/sAra-
ites, we have reproduced all the three main types of roll- call votes of this
kind. C is the vote on the equality of languages (the last of the three roll-
call votes on this question is given, it being the most complete). All the
anti-/s&ra-ites and the whole Centre stood solid against us, whereas a
part of the majority and a part of the minority separated from the Iskra-
ites. It was not yet clear which of the "Iskra"-ites were capable of forming a
definite and lasting coalition with the opportunist "Right- wing" of the
Congress. Next comes type D — the vote on paragraph one of the Rules (of
the two votes, we have taken the one which was more clear cut, that is, in
which there were no abstentions). The coalition becomes more distinct and
more lasting, all the Iskra-ites of the minority are now on the side of Aki-
mov and Lieber, but only a very small number of Iskra-ites of the ma-
jority, these counterbalancing three of the "Centre" and one anti-/sfcra-ite
who had come over to our side. A mere glance at the diagram will show
which elements shifted from side to side casually and temporal]] y and
which were drawn with irresistible force towards a lasting coalition with the
Akimovs. The last vote (E — elections to the central organ, the Central
Committee and the Party Council), which in fact represents the final
division into a majority and a minority, clearly reveals the complete fusion of
the Iskra-ite minority with the entire "Centre" and the remnants of the
anti-jfe&ra-ites. By this time, of the eight anti-Isfcra-ites, only Comrade
Brouckere remained at the Congress (Comrade Akimov had already
explained his mistake to him and he had taken his proper place
in the ranks of the Martovites). The withdrawal of the seven most
318 V. I. LENIN
"Right99 of the opportunists decided the issue of the elections against
Martov. *
And now, with the aid of the objective evidence of votes of every type,
let us sum up the results of the Congress.
There has been much talk to the effect that the majority at our Con-
gress was "casual." The diagram clearly shows that in one sense, but in
that one only, the majority may be called casual, viz., in the sense
that the withdrawal of the seven most opportunist delegates of the "Right99
was casual. Only to the extent that this withdrawal was casual (and no
more) was our majority casual. A mere glance at the diagram will show
better than any long argument on whose side these seven would have been,
were bound to have been. ** But the question arises : how far was the withdraw-
al of the seven really casual? That is a question which those who talk
freely about the "casual" character of the majority do not like to ask
themselves. They find it an unpleasant question. Was it a casual thing
that the most arrant representatives of the Right wing, and not of
the Left wing, of our Party were the ones to withdraw? Was it a casual
thing that it was opportunists who withdrew, and not consistent revolu-
tionary Social- Democrats'? Is there no connection between this "casual"
withdrawal and the struggle against the opportunist wing which was
waged all through the Congress and which stands out so clearly in our
diagram?
One has only to ask these questions, which are so unpleasant to the
minority, to realize what fact all this talk about the casual character of
the majority is intended to conceal. It is the unquestionable and incontro-
vertible fact that the minority was composed of those members of our Party
who were most inclined to gravitate towards opportunism. The minority was
composed of the elements in our Party who were the, least stable in theory
and the least consistent in matters of principle. It was from the Right wing
of the Party that the minority was formed. The division into a majority
and a minority is a direct and inevitable continuation of that division
of the Social-Democrats into a revolutionary wing and an opportunist
wing, into a Mountain and aGironde, which did not appear only yesterday,
nor in the Russian Workers ' Party alone, and which no doubt will not
disappear to-morrow.
* The seven opportunists who withdrew from the Second Congress were the
five Bundists (the Bund withdrew from the Party after the principle of federation
had been rejected by the Congress) and two Rabocheye Dyelo delegates, Comrade
Martynov and Comrade Akimov. These latter left the Congress after the lekra-
ite League had been recognized as the only Party organization abroad, i.e., after
the Rabocheye Dyelo-ite Foreign "Union" of Russian Social-Democrats had been
dissolved. (Lenin's footnote to the 1908 edition. — Ed.)
** We shall see later that after the Congress both Comrade Akimov and the
Voronezh Committee, which has the closest kinship with Comrade Akimov, explic-
itly expressed their sympathy with the "minority."
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 319
This fact is of cardinal importance for an elucidation of the causes and
the various stages of our disagreements. Whoever tries to evade the fact
by denying or glossing over the struggle at the Congress and the shades of
principle that emerged there, simply testifies to his own intellectual and
political poverty. But in order to disprove the fact, it would have to be
shown, in the first place, that the general picture of the votes and "divi-
sions" at our Party Congress was different from the one I have drawn; and,
in the second place, that it was the most consistent revolutionary Social-
Democrats, those who in Russia have adopted the name of Iskra-ites,
who were wrong in substance on all those issues over which the Congress
"divided."
The fact that the minority cons is ted of the most opportunist, the most un-
stable and least consistent elements of the Party incidentally provides an
answer to those numerous perplexities and objections that are addressed to
the majority by people who are imperfectly acquainted with the matter, or
have not given it sufficient thought. Is it not shallow, we are told, to account
for the disagreement by a minor mistake of Comrade Mar tov and Comrade
Axelrod? Yes, gentlemen, Comrade Martov 's mistake was a minor one (and
I said so even at the Congress, in the heat of the struggle); but this minor
mistake might cause (and did cause) a lot of harm owing to the fact that
Comrade Martov was pulled over to the side of delegates who had made num-
bers of mistakes and had manifested a tendency to opportunism and incon-
sistency of principle on numbers of questions. That Comrade Martov and
Comrade Axelrod should have displayed instability was an individual and
unimportant fact; it was not an individual fact, however, but a Party fact,
and a not altogether unimportant one, that a very considerable minority had
been formed of all the least stable elements , of all who either rejected Islcra *s
trend altogether and openly opposed it, or paid lip-service to it but actual-
ly sided time and again with the anti-/sfcra-ites.
Is it not absurd to account for the disagreement by the prevalence of
an inveterate circle spirit and revolutionary philistinism in the small cir-
cle comprised by ihtoldlskra editorial board? No, it is not absurd, because
all those in our Party who all through the Congress had fought for every
kind of circle, all those who were generally incapable of rising above revolu-
tionary philistinism, all those who spoke of the "historical" character of the
philistine and circle spirit to justify and preserve that evil, rose up in sup-
port of this particular circle. The fact that narrow circle interests prevailed
over the Party spirit in the one little circle of the Iskra editorial board may,
perhaps, be regarded as casual; but it was not casual that in staunch support
of this circle rose up the Akimovs and Brouckeres, who attached no less (if
not more) value to the "historical continuity" of the celebrated Voronezh
Committee and the notorious St. Petersburg "Workers'" Organization,*
* The Voronezh Committee, which was controlled by "Economists," had
taken up a hostile attitude towards the Iskra, the Organization Committee and
320 V. I. LENIN
the Egorovs, who lamented the "murder" of Rabocheye Dyelo as bitterly PS
the "murder" of the old editorial board (if not more so), the Makhovs, etc.,
etc. You can tell a man by his friends — the proverb says. And you can tell
a man's political complexion by his political allies, by the people who vote
for him.
The minor mistake committed by Comrade Martov and Comrade Axel-
rod was, and might have remained, a minor one as long as it did not serve as
the starting point for a durable alliance between them and the whole oppor-
tunist wing of our Party, as long as it did not lead, as a result of this alli-
ance, to a recrudescence of opportunism, to the exaction of revenge by all
whom Iskra had fought and who were now overjoyed at a chance of venting
their spleen on the consistent adherents of revolutionary Social-Democracy.
And, in fact, as a result of the post-congress events, we are now witnessing
a recrudescence of opportunism in the new Iskra, the exaction of revenge by
the Akimovs and Brouckeres (see the leaflet issued by the Voronezh Com-
mittee),* and the glee of the Marty no vs, who have at last (at last!) been
allowed, in the detested Iskra , to have a kick at the detested "enemy" for
all former grievances.
Taken by itself, there was nothing dreadful, nor crucial, nor even any-
thing abnormal in the fact that the Congress (and the Party) had divided
into a Left and a Right, a revolutionary wing and an opportunist wing. On
the contrary, the whole past decade in the history of the Russian (and not
only of the Russian) Social-Democratic movement has been leading inev-
itably and inexorably to such a division. The fact that it was a number of
very minor mistakes of the Right wing, of (relatively) very unim-
portant dissensions, that caused the division (which seems shocking
to the superficial observer and to the philistine mind), marked a big step
forward for our Party as a whole. Formerly we used to differ over major is-
sues, such as might even at times justify a split; now we have reached agree-
ment on all major and important points, and are only divided by shades ,
about which we may and should argue, but over which it would be absurd
and childish to part company (as Comrade Plekhanov has quite rightly said
in his interesting article "What Should Not Be Done?" to which we shall
revert). Now that the anarchist behaviour of the minority after the Congress
has almost led to a split in the Party, one may often hear wiseacres saying:
"Was it worth while fighting at the Congress over such trifles as the
Organization Committee episode, the dissolution of the Yuzhny Rdbochy
group or the Rabocheye Dyelo , or § 1, or the dissolution of the old editorial
the Second Congress they were arranging. It was therefore not invited to send
delegates to the Congress.
The "workers'" organization of the St. Petersburg League was formed in the
autumn of 1902 by "Economists" who had broken away from the St. Petersburg
"League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class." Brouckere (Lydia
Makhnovets) was the delegate from this organization at the Second Congress. — Ed.
* See this volume pp. 342*43.— l?d.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 321
board, etc.? Those who argue in this way are in fact introducing the circle
view into Party affairs: a struggle of shades in the Party is inevi able
and essential as long as it does not lead to anarchy and splits, as long as it is
confined within bounds approved by the common consent of all comrades and
Party members. And our struggle against the Right wing of the Party at
the Congress, against Akimov and Axelrod, Martynov and Martov, never ex-
ceeded those bounds. It is enough to recall, at least, that when Comrades
Martynov and Akimov were about to leave the Congress we were all pre-
pared to do everything to obliterate the idea of an "insult"; we all adopted
(by thirty- two votes) Trotsky's motion to invite these comrades to
regard the explanations as satisfactory and to withdraw their statement.
[Chapters O and P have been omitted in the present edition since they
are devoted to a description of the post-congress struggle over the personal
composition of the centres, i.e., something which appertains least of all to
the realm of principle and most of all to that of squabbling.]
Q. THE NEW ISKRA. OPPORTUNISM IN QUESTIONS
OF ORGANIZATION
As the basis for our analysis of the principles of the new Islcra we should
unquestionably take the two articles of Comrade Axelrod.* We have al-
leady shown at length what is the concrete meaning** of some of his favour-
ite catchwords. We must now try to abstract ourselves from their concrete
meaning and study more closely the line of thought that forced the "mi-
nority" (on any small or minor occasion) tp arrive at these particular
slogans rather than at any other, must examine the principles behind
these slogans, irrespective of their origin, of
Concessions are all the fashion nowadays, so
the question of "co-option
let us make a concession to
Comrade Axelrod and take his theory "seriously."
Comrade Axelrod ls main thesis (the/s&ra,No, 57) is that "from the very
outset our movement harboured two opposite tendencies, the mutual antag-
onism of which could not fail to develop and to affect the movement paral-
lel with its own development." To be precise: "in principle, the proletarian
aim of the movement (in Russia) is the same as that of the Social-Demo-
•cratic movement in the West." But in our country the influence is exer-
cised on the worker masses "by a social element alien to them," namely,
the radical intelligentsia. Comrade Axelrod thus establishes an antagonism
between the proletarian and the radical-intellectual trends in our Party.
* The articles in question were included in the sympi>sium "Iskra for Two
Years," Part II, p. 122, et aeq. (St. Petersburg 1906).
** This "concrete meaning" refers to the Congress and post-Congress struggle
over the personal composition of the centres the description of which has been
omitted in the present edition.
21—685
322 V. I. LENIN
In this Comrade Axelrod is undoubtedly right. The existence of
such an antagonism (and not in the Russian Social-Democratic Party
alone) is beyond question. What is more, everyone knows that it is this
antagonism that very largely accounts for the division of the present-day
Social-Democratic movement into the revolutionary (also known as the
orthodox) and the opportunist (revisionist, ministerialist, reformist) wing,
which has become fully apparent in Russia, too, during the past ten years
of our movement. Everyone also knows that the proletarian trend of the
movement is expressed by orthodox Social-Democracy, while the trend of
the democratic intelligentsia is expressed by opportunist Social-Democracy.
But, having squarely faced this piece of common knowledge, Comrade
Axelrod then begins to shy and back away from it. He does not make
the slightest attempt to analyse the way in which this division has manifest-
ed itself in the history of the Russian Social-Democratic movement in
general, and at our^Party Congress in particular, although it is about the
Congress that Comrade Axelrod is writing! Like all the other editors of
the new Iskra, Comrade Axelrod displays a mortal fear of the minutes
of this Congress. This should not surprise us after what has been said,
but in a "theoretician" who claims to be investigating the different trends
in our movement it is ceitainly a queer case of truth-shyness. Backing away,
because of this malady, from the latest and most accurate material on the
trends in our movement, Comrade Axelrod seeks salvation in the sphere
of pleasant daydreaming. He writes: "Has not legal or semi-Marxism
provided our liberals with a literary leader?* Why should not prankish
history provide revolutionary bourgeois democracy with a leader from the
school of orthodox, revolutionary Marxism?" All we can say about this day-
dream which Comrade Axeirod finds so pleasant is that if history does
sometimes play prankish tricks, that is no excuse for prankish thoughts
in people who undertake to analyse history. When the liberal peeped out
from under the cloak of the leader of semi-Marxism, those who wished
(and were able) to trace back his "trends" did not allude to possible prank-
ish tricks of history, but to tens and hundreds of instances of the men-
tality and logic of that leader and to those peculiarities of his literary
make-up which were stapiped with the reflection of Marxism in bourgeois
literature. And if, after having undertaken to analyse "the general revolu-
tionary and the proletarian trends in our movement "Comrade Axelrod
could produce nothing y absolutely nothing, in proof or evidence that cer-
tain representatives of that orthodox wing of the Party which he detests
so much have such-and-such tendencies, he thereby issued a formal cer-
tificate of his own bankruptcy. Comrade Axelrod 's case must be very weak
indeed if all he can do is to allude to possible pranks of history.
Comrade Axelrod's other allusion — to the "Jacobins" — is still more
revealing. Comrade Axelrod is probably aware that the division of the
* The reference is to Struve. — Ed.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 823
present-day Social-Democratic movement into revolutionary and oppor*
tunist has long since given rise — and not only in Russia — to "historical
parallels with the era of the Great French Revolution." Comrade Axelrod
is probably aware that, the Girondists of the present-day Social- Democrat*
ic movement are always resorting to the terms "Jacobinism," "Blanquism"
and so on to describe their opponents. Let us then not imitate Comrade
Axelrod in his truth-shyness, let us consult the minutes of our Congress
and see whether they offer any material for an analysis and examination
of the trends we are discussing and the parallels we are dissecting.
First example: the debate on the program at the Party Congress. Com-
rade Akimov ("fully agreeing" with Comrade Marty no v) says: "the clause
on the capture of political power (the dictatorship of the proletariat) has
been formulated in such a way — as compared with the programs of all
other Social-Democratic parties — that it may be interpreted, and has ac-
tually been interpreted by Plekhanov, to mean that the role of the lead-
ers of the organization will relegate to the background the class it is
leading and separate the former from the latter. Consequently, the formu-
lation of our political tasks is exactly the same as that of the "Narodnaya
Volya." (Minutes, p. 124.) Comrade PJekhanov and other Iskra-ites reply
to Comrade Akimov and accuse him of opportunism. Does not Comrade
Axelrod find that this dispute shows (in actual fact, and not in the imagi-
nary pranks of history) the antagonism between the modern Jacobins
and the modern Girondists in the Social-Democratic movement? And was
it not because he found himself in the company of the Girondists of the
Social-Democratic movement (owing to the mistakes he committed) that
Comrade Axelrod began talking about Jacobins?
Second example: Comrade Posadovsky asserts that there is a "grave
difference of opinion" over the "fundamental question" of the "absolute
value of democratic principles" (p. 169). Like Plekhanov, he denies their
absolute value. The leaders of the "Centre," or the Marsh (Egorov), and
of the anti-/£&ra-ites (Goldblatt) vigorously oppose this view and accuse
Plekhanov of "imitating bourgeois tactics" (p. 170). This is exactly
Comrade Axelrod 's idea of a connection between orthodoxy and the bourgeois
trends, the only difference being that in Axelrod 's case it is vague and gener-
al, whereas Goldblatt linked it up with definite issues. Again we ask: does
not Comrade Axelrod find that this dispute, too, obviously shows, at our
Party Congress, the antagonism between the Jacobins and the Girondists
in the present-day Social-Democratic movement? Is it not because he
finds himself in the company of the Girondists that Comrade Axelrod
raises this outcry against the Jacobins?
Third example: the debate on §1 of the Rules. Who is it that defends
"*the proletarian trend in our movement"? Who is it that insists that the
worker is not afraid of organization, that the proletarian has no sympathy
for anarchy, and that he values the prompting to organize? Who is it
that warns us against the bourgeois intelligentsia and says that they art
21*
V. I. LENIN
permeated through and through with opportunism? The Jacobins of
{he Social- Democratic movement. And who is it that tries to smuggle
radical intellectuals into the Party? Who is it that is concerned about
professors, high school students, freelances, the radical youth? The Gi-
rondist Axelrod and the Girondist Lieber.
- How clumsily Comrade Axelrod defends himself against the "false
Accusation, of opportunism" that was openly levelled at the majority of
the "Emancipation of Labour" Group at our Party Congress. He defends
himself in a manner that confirms the charge, for he keeps reiterating
the hackneyed Bernsteinian song about Jacobinism, Blanquism and so
pnl He shouts about the menace of the radical intellectuals in order to
drown his own speeches at the Party Congress which were full of concern
£or these intellectuals.
These "dreadful words" — Jacobinism and the rest — are expressive of
nothing but opportunism. A Jacobin who maintains an inseparable bond
with the organization of the proletariat, a proletariat conscious of its class
interests, is a revolutionary Social- Democrat. A Girondist who yearns for
professors and high school students, who is afraid of the dictatorship of
the proletariat and who sighs about the absolute value of democratic
demands is an opportunist. It is only opportunists who can still detect
a danger in secret organizations today, when the idea of narrowing down
,the political struggle to a secret conspiracy has been rejected thousands
of times in written publications and has long been rejected and swept
aside by the realities of life, and when the cardinal importance of mass
political agitation has been elucidated and reiterated to the point of
nausea. The real basis of this fear of conspiracy, of Blanquism, is not
any feature to be found in the practical movement (as Bernstein and Co.
have long, and vainly, been trying to show), but the Girondist timidity
of the bourgeois intellectual whose mentality is so often revealed among
the Social-Democrats of today. Nothing could be more comical than these
efforts of the new Iskra to utter a ne w word of warning (which has been
uttered hundreds of times before) against the tactics of the French con-
spirator revolutionaries of the 'forties and 'sixties (No. 62, editorial).
In the next issue of the Iskra, the Girondists of the present-day Social-
Democratic movement will probably name a group of French conspiratprs
of the 'forties for whom the importance of political agitation among the
working masses, the importance of the labour press as the principal means
by which the party influences the class, was a rudimentary truth they had
learned and assimilated long ago.
However, the tendency of the new Iskra to repeat the ABC and go back
,to rudiments while pretending to be uttering something new is not without
its cause; it is an inevitable consequence of the situation Axelrod and
Martov find themselves in, now that they have landed in the opportunist
;wijig of our Party. There is nothing for it; They have to go on repeating
Opportunist phrases, they have to go back and try .to find in the remote
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 32fl
past some sort of justification for their position, which is indefensible
from the point of view of the struggle at the Congress and of the shaded
and divisions in the Party that emerged there. To the profound Akimov-
ist remarks about Jacobinism and Blanquism, Comrade Axelrod adds
Akimovist lamentations to the effect that the "politicians" as well, and
not only the "Economists" were "one-sided," excessively "infatuated,'*
and so on and so forth. Reading the high-flown disquisitions on this
subject in the new Iskra, which conceitedly claims to be above one*
sidedness and infatuation, one asks in perplexity: whose portrait are
they painting? where do they hear this talk? Who does not know that the
division of the Russian Social-Democrats into Economists and politicians
has long been obsolete? Go through the files of the Iskra for the last year
or two before the Party Congress and you will find that the fight against
"Economism" subsided and came to an end altogether as far back as
1902; you will find, for example, that in July 1903 (No. 43), the "times
of Economism" are spoken of as being "definitely over." Economism is
considered to be "dead and buried," and the infatuation of the politicians
is regarded as clear atavism. Why, then, do the new editors of the
Iskra revert to this dead and buried division? Do you think that we fought
the Akimovs at the Congress because of the mistakes they made in the
Rabocheye Dyelo two years ago? If we had, we would have been sheer idiots*
But everyone knows that we did not, that it was not for their old,
dead and buried mistakes in the Rabocheye Dyelo that we fought the Aki-
movs at the Congress, but for the new mistakes they committed in their
arguments and in the way they voted at the Congress. It was not by their
stand on the Rabocheye Dyelo that we judged which mistakes had really
been abandoned and which still lived and called for controversy, but by
their stand at the Congress. By the time of the Congress the old division
into Economists and politicians no longer existed; but various opportunist
trends continued to exist. They found expression in the debates and vot-
ing on a number of issues, and finally led to a new division of the Party into
a "majority" and a "minority." The whole point is that the new editors of
the Iskra are for obvious reasons trying to gloss over the connection that
exists between this new division and contemporary opportunism in our Party,
and are, consequently, compelled to go back from the new division to
the old one. Their inability to explain the political origin of the new di-?
vision (or their desire, in order to prove how accommodating they are, to
cast a veil* over its origin) compels them to keep harping on a divisiott
* See Plckhanov's article on "Economism" in the Iskra, No. 53. The subtitle
of the article appears to contain a slight misprint. Instead of "Reflections on the
Second Party Congress," it should apparently read, "On the League Congress,"
or even "On Co-option." However appropriate concessions to personal claims
may be under certain circumstances, it is quite inadmissible (from the Party,
not the philistine standpoint) to confuse the issues that are agitating the Party
and to substitute for the new mistake of Martov and Axelrod, who have begun,
P26 V. I. LENIN
that has long been obsolete. Everyone knows that the new division is
based on a difference of opinion over questions of organization, which
began with the controversy over principles of organization (§ 1 of the Rutes)
and ended up with a "practice" worthy of anarchists. The old division
into Economists and politicians was based mainly on a difference of
opinion over questions of tactics.
In its efforts to justify this retreat from the more complex, truly mod-
ern and burning issues of Party life to issues that have long been settled
and have now been dug up artificially, the new Iskra resorts to an
amusing display of profundity for which there can be no other name than
khvostism. Started by Comrade Axelrod, there runs like a crimson thread
through all the writing of the new Iskra the profound "thought" that
content is more important than form, that program and tactics are more
important than organization, that "the virility of an organization is in
direct proportion to the volume and importance of the content it puts
into the movement," that centralism is not an "end in itself," not an
*'all-saving talisman," etc., etc. Great and profound truths! A program
is indeed more important than tactics, and tactics are more important
than organization. The alphabet is more important than etymology, and
etymology more important than syntax — but what would we say of
people who, having failed in an examination in syntax, went about plum-
ing and priding themselves on having been kept over in a lower class
for another year? Comrade Axelrod argued about principles of organiza-
tion (§ 1) like an opportunist, and behaved inside the organization like
an anarchist — and now he is trying to lend profundity to Social-Democracy.
Sour grapes! What is organization, properly speaking? Why, it is only
a form. What is centralism? After all, it is not a talisman. What is syn-
tax? Why, it is less important t^ian etymology; it is only a form of com-
bining the elements of etymology. . . . "Will not Comrade Alexandrov
agree with us," the new editors of the Iskra triumphantly ask, "when
we say that the Congress did much more for the centralization of Party
work by drawing up a Party program than by adopting rules, however
perfect the latter may seem?" (No. 56, Supplement.) It is to be hoped
that this classical utterance will acquire a historic fame no less wide
and no less lasting than Comrade Krichevsky's celebrated remark to the
effect that Social-Democracy, like mankind, always sets itself achievable
tasks. The profundity of the new Iskra is of exactly the same alloy. Why
Was Comrade Krichevsky's phrase held up to derision? Because he tried
to justify the mistake of a section of the Social-Democrats in matters of
tactics — their inability to set correct political aims — by a commonplace
to swing from orthodoxy to opportunism, the old mistake (never recalled today
by anyone except the new Iskra) of the Martynovs and the Akimovs, wno may
now be prepared, for all one knows, to swing from opportunism to orthodoty on
many questions of program and tactics.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 327
"which he wanted to palm off as philosophy. In exactly the same way the
new Iskra tries to justify the mistake of a section of the Social-Democrats
in matters of organization, to justify the instability of the intellectual
displayed by certain comrades — which has led them to the point of anarch-
ist phrasemongering — by the commonplace that a program is more im-
portant than rules, and that questions of program are more important
than questions of organization I What is this but khvostism? What is
this but pluming oneself on having been left over in a lower class for
another year?
The adoption of a program contributes more to the centralization of
the work than the adoption of rules. How this commonplace, palmed off
as philosophy, smacks of the mentality of the radical intellectual, who
has much more in common with bourgeois decadence than with Social-
Democracy! Why, the word centralization is used in this famous phrase
quite symbolically. If the authors of the phrase are unable or disinclined
to think, they might at least have recalled the simple fact that though
we and the Bundists together adopted a program, this did not even save
us from a split, let alone lead to the centralization of our common work.
Unity on questions of program and tactics is an essential but by no means
a sufficient condition for Party unity and for the centralization of Party
work (good God, what rudimentary things one has to keep repeating
nowadays, when all concepts have been confused!). That requires, in
addition, unity of organization, which, in a party that has grown to be
anything more than a mere family circle, is inconceivable without for-
mal rules, without the subordination of the minority to the majority, of
the part to the whole. As long as there was no unity on the fundamental
questions of program and tactics, we bluntly admitted that we were
living in a period of disunity and the circle spirit; we bluntly declared
that before we could unite, lines of demarcation must be drawn; we did
not even talk of the forms of a joint organization, but exclusively dis-
cussed the new (at that time they really were new) questions of how to fight
opportunism on program and tactics. When, as we all agreed, this fight
had already ensured a sufficient degree of unity, as formulated in the
Party program and in the Party's resolution on tactics, we had to take
the next step, and, by common consent, we did take it, working out
the forms of a united organization that would merge all the circles to-
gether. We have been dragged back to anarchist conduct, to anarchist
phrasemongering, to the revival of a circle in place of a Party ed-
itorial board. And this step back is being justified on the grounds that
the alphabet is more helpful to literate speech than a knowledge of
syntax!
The philosophy of khvostism which flourished three years ago in con-
nection with tactics is being resurrected today in connection with organ*
ization. Take the following argument of the new editors: 'The militant
Social-Democratic trend in the Party," says Comrade Alexandrov, "should
328 V. I. LENIN
be maintained not only by an ideological struggle, but by definite forms
of organization."' Whereupon the editors edifymgly remark: "Not bad,
this juxtaposition of ideological struggle and forms of organization. The
ideological struggle is a process, whereas the forms of organization are
just . . . forms [believe it or not, that is what they say in No. 56, Supple-
ment, p. 4, col. 1, bottom of page!] designed to clothe a fluid and develop-
ing content — the developing practical work of the Party." That is quite
in the style of the joke about a cannon ball being a cannon ball and a bomb
a bomb! The ideological struggle is a process, and the forms of organiza*
tion are only forms clothing the content! The point at issue is whether
our ideological struggle is to have forms of a higher type to clothe it, forms
of Party organization binding on all, or the forms of the old disunity and
the old circles. We have been dragged back from higher to more primi-
tive forms, and this is being justified on the grounds that the ideological
struggle is a process, whereas forms — are just forms. That is just how
Comrade Krichevsky in bygone days tried to drag us back from tactics-
as-a-plan to tactics- as- a- process.
Take the pompous talk of the new Iskra about the "self-training of
the proletariat" which is directed against those who are supposed to
be in danger of missing the content because of the form. (No. 58, edito-
rial.) Is this not Akimovism No. 2? Akimovism No. 1 used to justify
the backwardness of a section of the Social-Democratic intelligentsia
in formulating tactical tasks by talking about the more "profound" con*
tent of the "proletarian struggle" and about the self-training of the pro-
letariat. Akimovism No. 2 justifies the backwardness of a section of
the Social-Democratic intelligentsia in the theory and practice of organ-
ization by equally profound talk about organization being merely a
form, and the self-training of the proletariat being the important thing.
Let me tell you gentlemen who are so solicitous about the younger broth-
er* that the proletariat is not afraid of organization and discipline!
The proletariat will do nothing to have the worthy professors and high
school students, who do not want to join an organization, recognized as
Party members merely because they work under the control of an organ-
ization. The proletariat is trained by its whole life for organization
far more radically than many an intellectual prig. Having gained some
understanding of our program and our tactics, the proletariat will not
Start justifying backwardness in organization by arguing that the fornt
is less important than the content. It is not the proletariat, but certain
intellectual* in our Party who lack self-training in the spirit of organiza-
tion and discipline, in the spirit of hostility and contempt for anarchist
phrasemongering. When they say that it is not ripe for organization,
the Akimovs No. 2 libel the proletariat just as the Akimovs No. 1 li-
belled it when they said that it was not ripe for the political struggle. The
*Thc "lower classes." — Ed.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 329
proletarian who has become a conscious Social-Democrat and feels that
he is a member of the Party will reject khvostism in matters of organiza-
tion with the same contempt as he rejected khvostism in matters of
tactics.
Finally, consider the profound wisdom of "Practical Worker" in the
new Iskra. "Properly understood," he says, "the idea of a 'militant' cen-
tralized organization uniting and centralizing the activities" (the ital-
ics are to make it look more profound) "of revolutionaries can naturally
materialize only if such activities exist" (new and clever!); "the organiza-
tion itself, being a form"(mark that!), "canonly grow simultaneously" (the
italics are the author's, as throughout this quotation) "with the growth
of the revolutionary work which is its content." (No. 57.) Does this not
remind you very much of the hero in the folk tale who, on seeing a funer-
al, cried: "Many happy returns of the day"? I am sure there is not a prac-
tical worker (in the genuine sense of the term) in our Party who does
not understand that the form of our activities (i.e., our organization)
has been lagging behind its content for a long time, and lagging desper-
ately, and that only the Simple Simon in the Party could shout to those
who are lagging: "Keep in line; don't run ahead!" Compare our Party,
let us say, with the Bund. There can be no question but that the con eat*
of the work of our Party is immeasurably richer, more varied, broader
and deeper than that of the Bund. The scope of our theoretical views is
wider, our program more developed, our influence among the working-
class masses (and not among the organized artisans alone) broader and
deeper, our propaganda and agitation more varied, the pulse of the po-
litical work of the leaders and of the rank and file more lively, the popu-
lar movements during demonstrations and general strikes grander, and
our work among the non-proletarian population more energetic. And the
"form"? Compared with that of the Bund, the "form," of our work is
lagging unpardonably, lagging so that it is an eyesore and brings a blush
of shame to the cheeks of anyone who docs not merely "pick his nose"
when contemplating the affairs of his Party. The fact that the organiza-
tion of our work is lagging behind its content is our weak point, and it
was our weak point long before the Congress, long before the Organiza-
tion Committee was formed. The undeveloped and unstable character
of the form makes any serious step in the further development of the con-
tent impossible; it causes a shameful stagnation, leads to a waste of ener-
gy, to a discrepancy between word and deed. We have all suffered enough
from this discrepancy, yet along come the Axelrods and the "Practical
* I will not mention the fact that the content of our Party work was outlined
at the Congress (in the program, etc.) in the spirit of revolutionary Social-Democ-
racy only at the cost of a struggle, a struggle against the very anti-Jfofcro-ites-
and the very Marsh whose representatives numerically predominate in our
"minority."
330 V. I, LENIN
Workers" of the new Iskra with their profound precept: the form must
grow naturally, and only simultaneously with the content!
That is where a small mistake in connection with a question of organ-
ization (§1) will lead you, if you try to lend profundity to nonsense and
to find philosophical justification for an opportunist phrase. Pacing slow-
ly in timid zigzags! — we have heard this refrain in connection with
•questions of tactics; we are hearing it again in connection with questions
of organization, Khvostism in matters of organization is a natural and inev-
itable product of the mentality of the anarchist individualist when he
starts to elevate his anarchist deviations (which at the outset may have
been accidental) to a system of views, to special differences of principle.
At the Congress of the League we witnessed the beginnings of this anarch-
ism, in the new Iskra we are witnessing attempts to elevate it to a
system of views. These attempts strikingly confirm what was already
said at the Party Congress about the difference between the point of view
of the bourgeois intellectual who attaches himself to the Social-Democrat-
ic movement and the proletarian who has become conscious of his class
interests. For instance, this same "Practical Worker" of the new Iskra
with whose profundity we are already familiar denounces me for visual-
izing the Party as "an immense factory" headed by a director in the
shape of the Central Committee (No. 57, Supplement). "Practical Work-
er" does not even guess that the dreadful word he uses immediately
betrays the mentality of the bourgeois intellectual who is familiar nei-
ther with the practice nor with the theory of proletarian organization.
For the factory, which seems only a bogey to some, is that highest form of
capitalist co-operation which has united and disciplined the proletariat,
taught it to organize, and placed it at the head of all the other sections
of the toiling and exploited population. And Marxism, the ideology of
the proletariat trained by capitalism, has taught and is teaching unstable
intellectuals to distinguish between the factory as a means of exploita-
tion (discipline based on fear of starvation) and the factory as a means
of organization (discipline based on collective work united by the con-
ditions of a technically highly developed form of production). The disci-
pline and organization which come so hard to the bourgeois intellectual
are very easily acquired by the proletariat just because of this factory
"schooling." Mortal fear of this school and utter failure to understand
its importance as an organizing factor are characteristic of the ways
of thinking which reflect the petty-bourgeois mode of life and which give
*ise to that species of anarchism which the German Social-Democrats
call Edelanarchismus , i.e., the anarchism of the "noble" gentleman, or
aristocratic anarchism, as I would call it. This aristocratic anarchism
is particularly characteristic of the Russian nihilist. He thinks of the
Party organization as a monstrous "factory"; he regards the subordi-
nation of the part to the whole and of the minority to the majority as "serf-
dom" (see Axelrod's articles); division of labour under the direction of
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 331
a centre evokes from him a tragi-comical outcry against people being
transformed into "wheels and cogs" (to turn editors into contributors
being considered a particularly atrocious species of such transformation);
mention of the organizational rules of the Party calls forth a contemptu-
ous grimace and the disdainful remark (intended for the "formalists")
that one could very well dispense with rules altogether.
Incredible as it may seem, it was a didactic remark of just this sort
that Comrade Martov addressed to me in the Iskra, No. 58, quoting, for
greater weight, my own words in "A Letter to a Comrade." Well, what
is it if not "aristocratic anarchism," and khvostism to cite examples from
the era of disunity, the era of the circles, to justify the preservation
and glorification of the circle spirit and anarchy in the era of the
Party?
Why did we not need rules before? Because the Party consisted of
Separate circles, unconnected by any organizational tie. Any individual
could pass from one circle to another at his own "sweet will, "for he was
not faced with any formulated expression of the will of the whole. Dis-
putes within the circles were not settled by rules, "but by a struggle and
by threats to resign," as I put it in " A Letter to a Comrade," citing the
experience of a number of circles and of our own editorial circle of six in
particular. In the era of the circles, this was natural and inevitable, but
it never occurred to anybody to extol it, to regard it as ideal; everyone
complained of the disunity, everyone was tired of it and longed for the
time when the isolated circles would be fused into a formally constituted
party organization. And now that this fusion has taken place, we are be-
ing dragged back and, under the guise of higher organizational views,
treated to anarchist phrasemongering! To those who are accustomed
to the loose dressing gown and slippers of the Oblomov * circle domesticity;
formal rules seem narrow, restrictive, irksome, petty and bureaucratic,
a bond of serfdom and a fetter on the free "process" of the ideological
struggle. Aristocratic anarchism cannot understand that formal rules
are needed precisely in order to replace the narrow circle ties by the broad
Party tie. It was unnecessary and impossible to formulate the internal
tie of a circle or the ties between circles, for these ties rested on friend-
ship or on a "confidence" for which no reason or motive had to be given.
The Party tie cannot and must not rest on either of these; it must be
founded on formal, "bureaucratically" worded rules (bureaucratic from
the standpoint of the undisciplined intellectual), strict adherence to
which can alone safeguard us from the wilfulness and caprices characterist-
ic of the circles, from the circle methods of scrapping that goes by the
name of the free "process of the ideological struggle."
* Oblomov — the hero of Goncharov's novel of the same name, an embodiment
of inertia, supineness and a passive, vegetating existence. — Ed.
332 V. I. LENIN
The editors of the new Iskra try to trump Alexandrov with the didac-
tic remark that "confidence is a delicate matter and cannot be knocked
into people's hearts and minds" (No. 56, Supplement). The editors do
not realize that by this talk about confidence, naked confidence, they are
once more betraying their aristocratic anarchism and organizational
khvostism. When I was a member of a circle only — whether it was the
circle of, the six editors or the Iskra organization — I was entitled to jus-
tify my refusal, say, to work with X merely on the grounds of lack of
confidence, without stating reason or motive. But now that I have be-
come a member of a party, I am no longer entitled to plead lack of confi-
dence in general, for that would throw open the doors to all the freaks
and whims of the old circles; I have to give formal reasons for my "confi-
dence" or "lack of confidence," that is, I must cite a formally established
principle of our program, tactics or rules; I must not just declare my
"confidence" or "lack of confidence" without giving reasons for them,
but must realize that reasons must be given for my decisions — and generally
for all decisions of any section of the Party — to the whole Party; I have
to adhere to a formally prescribed procedure when giving expression to
my "lack of confidence," or when trying to secure the acceptance of
the views and wishes that follow from this lack of confidence. We have
risen above the circle view that "confidence" does not have to be account-
ed for to the Party view which demands adherence to a formally prescribed
procedure of expressing, accounting for and testing our confidence.
But the editors are trying to drag us back, and are calling their khvostism
"new views on organization"!
Listen to the way our so-called Party editors talk about the literary
groups that might demand representation on the editorial board. "We
shall not get indignant and begin to shout about discipline," we are
admonished by these aristocratic anarchists who have always looked
down on such a thing as discipline. We shall either "arrange the matter"
(sicl) with the group, if it is reasonable, or just ridicule its demands.
Dear, dear, what a lofty and noble rebuff to vulgar "factory" formalism!
But in reality it is the old circle phraseology furbished up a little and
served up to the Party by an editorial board which does not feel that it
is a Party body, but the survival of an old circle. The intrinsic falsity
of this position inevitably leads to the anarchist profundity of elevating
the disunity which they pharisaically proclaim to be obsolete to a prin-
ciple of Social-Democratic organization. There is no need for a hierarchy
of higher and lower Party bodies and authorities — aristocratic anarchism
regards such a hierarchy as the bureaucratic invention of ministries,
departments, etc. (see Axelrod's article); there is no need for the part to
submit to the whole; there is no need for any "formal bureaucratic" de-
finition of Party methods of "arranging matters" or of parting ways.
Let the old circle scrapping be sanctified by pompous talk about "genu-
inely Social-Democratic" methods of organization.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 333
This is where the proletarian who has been through the school of the
"factory" can and should teach a lesson to anarchist individualism. The
class-conscious worker has long ago emerged from the state of infancy
when he used to fight shy of the intellectual as such. The class-conscious
worker prizes the richer store of knowledge and the wider political hori-
zon which he finds in Social-Democratic intellectuals. But as we proceed
with the building of a real party, the class-conscious worker must learn
to distinguish the mentality of the soldier of the proletarian army from
.the mentality of the bourgeois intellectual who flaunts his anarchist
talk, he must learn to insist that the duties of a Party member be fulfilled
not only by the rank and file, but by the "people on top" as well; he
jnust learn to treat khvostism in matters of organization with the con-
tempt with which in the old days he used to treat khvostism in matters
of tactics 1
Inseparably connected with Girondism and aristocratic anarchism
is the last characteristic feature of the new Iskra's attitude towards mat-
ters of organization, namely, its defence of autonomism as against cen-
tralism. This is the meaning in principle (if it has any such meaning)
of its outcry against bureaucracy and autocracy, of its regrets over the
"undeserved neglect of the non-Isfcra-ites" (who defended autonomism
at the Congress), of its comical howls about the demand for "unquali-
fied obedience," of its bitter complaints of "pompadour methods," etc.,
etc. The opportunist wing of any party always defends and justifies all
retrograde tendencies, whether in program, tactics or organization. The
new Iskra's defence of retrograde tendencies in matters of organization
(khvostism) is closely connected with the defence of autonomisw . True,
autonomism has, generally speaking, been so discredited by the three
years' propaganda work of the old Iskra that the new Iskra is ashamed,
as yety to advocate it openly; it still assures us of its sympathy for cen-
tralism, but shows it only by printing the word centralism in italics.
Actually, it is enough to apply the slightest touch of criticism to the "prin-
ciples" of the "true Social-Democratic" (aot anarchistic?) quasi-central-
ism of the new Iskra for the autonomist standpoint to be detected at
every step. Is it not now clear to everyone that on the subject of organi-
zation Axelrod and Martov have swung over to Akimov? Have they not
solemnly admitted it themselves in the significant words, "undeserved
neglect of the non-/sfcra-ites"? And what was it but autonomism that
Akimov and his friends defended at our Party Congress?
It was autonomism (if not anarchism) that Martov and Axelrod de-
fended at the Congress of the League when, with amusing zeal, they tried
to prove that the part need not submit to the whole, that the part is auton-
omous in defining its relation to the whole, that the rules of the Foreign
League, in which the relation is thus formulated, are valid, in defiance
of the will of the Party majority, in defiance of the will of the Party centre.
It is autonomism, too, that Comrade Martov is now openly defending
334 V. I. LENIN
in the columns of the new Iskra (No. 60) in connection with the fight of
the Central Committee to appoint members to the local committees. I
shall not speak of the puerile sophistries which Comrade Martov
used to defend autonomism at the Congress of the League, and is
still using in the new Iskra — the important thing here is to note
the undoubted tendency to defend autonomism as against centralism*
which is a fundamental characteristic of opportunism in matters of organ-
ization.
Perhaps the only attempt to analyse the concept bureaucracy is the
distinction drawn in the new Iskra (No. 53) between the "formal demo*
erafo'c principle" (author's italics) and the "formal bureaucratic principle."
This distinction (which, unfortunately, was no more developed or explained
than the allusion to the non-/sfcra-ites) contains a grain of truth. Bu-
reaucracy versus democracy is the same thing as centralism versus auton*
omism; it is the organizational principle of the revolutionary Social-Dem-
ocrats as opposed to the organizational principle of the opportunist
Social-Democrats. The latter strive to proceed from the bottom upward,
and, therefore, wherever possible and as far as possible, advocate auton-
omism and a "democracy" which is carried (by the over-zealous) to the
point of anarchism. The former strive to proceed from the top downward,
and advocate an extension of the rights and powers of the centre in re-
spect to the parts. In the period of disunity and the circles, this top from
which the revolutionary Social-Democrats strove to proceed organization-
ally was inevitably one of the circles, the one which was most influential
because of its activity and its revolutionary consistency (in our case,
the Iskra organization). Now that real Party unity has been restored
and the obsolete circles dissolved in this unity, this top is inevitably
the Party Congress, as the supreme organ of the Party; the Congress as far
as possible includes representatives of all the active organizations, and,
by appointing the central bodies (often with a membership which satis-
fies the advanced elements of the Party more than the backward elements >
and which is more to the taste of its revolutionary wing than its opportun-
ist wing) makes them the top until the next Congress. Such, at any rate,,
is the case among the Social-Democratic Europeans, although this cus-
tom, which is so detested in principle by the anarchists, is gradually
beginning, not without difficulty and not without conflicts and squabbles >
to spread to the Social-Democratic Asiatics.
It is most interesting to note that these fundamental characteristics
of opportunism in matters of organization (autonomism, aristocratic or
intellectual anarchism, khvostism and Girondism) are mutatis mutandis
(with corresponding modifications) to be observed in all the Social-Dem-
ocratic parties of the world, wherever there is a division into a revolution-
ary wing and an opportunist wing (and where is there not?). Only quite
recently this was very strikingly revealed in the German Social-Demo*
cratic Party, when its defeat at the elections in the 20th electoral division
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 335
of Saxony (known as the Gohre incident)* brought the question of the
principles of party organization to the fore. That this incident should
have become an issue of principle was largely due to the zeal of the Ger-
man opportunists. Gohre (an ex-parson, author of that not uncelebrated
book, Drei Monate Fabrikarbeiter** and one of the "heroes" of the Dres-
den Congress) was himself an extreme opportunist, and the Sozialistische
Monatshefte (Socialist Monthly), the organ of the consistent German
opportunists, at once "took up the cudgels" on his behalf.
Opportunism in program is naturally connected with opportunism
in tactics and opportunism in organization. The exposition of the "new""
point of view was undertaken by Comrade Wolfgang Heine. To give the
reader some idea of the political complexion of this typical intellec-
tual, who on joining the Social-Democratic movement brought with him
his opportunist habits of thought, it is enough to say that Comrade Wolf-
gang Heine is something less than a German Comrade Akimov and some-
thing more than a German Comrade Egorov.
Comrade Wolfgang Heine took the warpath in the Sozialistische
Monatehefte with no less pomp than Comrade Axelrod in the new Iskra.
The very title of his article is priceless: "Democratic Observations on
the Gohre Incident" (Sozialistische Monatshefte, No. 4, April). The con-
tents are no less thunderous. Comrade W. Heine rises up in arms against
"encroachments on the autonomy of a constituency, "champions the "dem-
ocratic principle," and protests against the interference of an "appoint-
ed authority" (i.e., the Central Council of the Party) in the free election
of deputies by the people. The point at issue, Comrade W. Heine admon-
ishes us, is not a casual incident, but a general "tendency towards bureauc-
racy and centralism in the Party," a tendency, he says, which was tobeob-
served before, but which is now becoming particularly dangerous. It
must be "recognized as a principle that the local institutions of the Party
are the arteries of Party life" (a plagiarism on Comrade Martov's pam-
phlet, Once More in the Minority). We must not "get accustomed to the
idea that all important political decisions must emanate from one centre,"1
and we must warn the Party against "a doctrinaire policy which loses
contact with life" (borrowed from Comrade Martov's speech at the Party
Congress to the effect that "life will claim its own"). Carrying his argu-
ment further, Comrade W. Heine says: ", .. If we go down to the roots of
* Gohre was returned to the Reichstrg on June 16, 1903, from the 15th division
of Saxony, but resigned after the Dresden Corgress. The electorate of the 20th
division, which had fallen vacant on the death of Rosenow, wanted to offer the
seat to Gohre. The Central Council of the Party and the Central Agitation Com-
mittee^for Saxony opposed this, and although they had no formal r'ght to forbid
Gdhre s nomination, they succeeded in getting him to decline. The Social-Demo-
crats were defeated at the polls.
** Three months as a Factory Worker.— Ed.
336 V. I. LENIN
the matter, if we abstract ourselves from personal conflicts, which here,
as everywhere, have played no small part, we shall find that this bitter*
ness against the revisionists" (the italics are the author's and evidently
hint at a distinction between fighting revisionism and fighting revision-
ists) "is mainly expressive of the distrust of the Party officials for 'ottf-
sidera'" (W. Heine had evidently not yet read the pamphlet about com-
bating the state of siege, and therefore resorted to an Anglicism — Out-
-sidertum)^ "the distrust of tradition for the unusual, of the impersonal
institution for everything individual," "in a word, that tendency which we
have defined above as a tendency toward bureaucracy and centralism in
the party."
The idea of "discipline" inspires Comrade W. Heine with a no less
noble disgust than Comrade Axelrod. . . . "The revisionists," he writes,
<chave been accused of lack of discipline for having written for the Sozi-
alistische Monatshefte — whose Social-Democratic character has even been
brought into question because it is not controlled by the Party. This at-
tempt to narrow down the concept 'Social-Democratic,' this insistence on
discipline in the sphere of ideological production, where absolute freedom
should prevail" (remember that the ideological struggle is a process
whereas the forms of organization are only forms) "in themselves point
to the tendency towards bureaucracy and the suppression of individuali-
ty." And W. Heine goes on and on, fulminating against this detestable
tendency to create "one big all-embracing organization, as centralized as
possible, one set of tactics and one theory," against the demand for "un-
qualified obedience," "blind submission," against "over-simplified cen-
tralism," etc., etc., literally "in the Axelrod manner."
The controversy started by W. Heine spread, and as there were no
squabbles about co-option in the German Party to obscure the issue, and
as the German Akimovs display their complexion not only at congresses
but also in a permanent periodical of their own, the controversy soon
boiled down to an analysis of the principles of the orthodox and revisionist
trends in matters of organization. Karl Kautsky came forward (in Die
NeueZeit, 1904, No. 28, in an article "Wahlkreis und Par ^'"—"Constit-
uency and Party") as one of the spokesmen of the revolutionary trend
(which, exactly as in our Party, was of course accused of "dictatorship,"
"inquisitorial" tendencies and other dreadful things). "W. Heine's arti-
cle," he says, "reveals the line of thought of the whole revisionist trend."
Not only in Germany, but in France and Italy as well, the opportunists
are all in favour of autonomism, of a slackening of Party discipline, of
reducing it to nought; everywhere their tendencies lead to disorganiza-
tion and to corrupting the "democratic principle" and converting it into
anarchism. "Democracy does not mean absence of authority," says Karl
Kautsky, instructing the opportunists on the subject of organization,
"democracy does not mean anarchy; it means the rule of the masses over
their representatives, as distinct from other forms of rule where the sup-
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 337
posed servants of the people are in reality their masters." K. Kautsky
traces at length the disruptive role played by opportunist autonomism
in various countries; he shows that it is precisely the fact that "a great
number of bourgeois elements99* have joined the Social-Democratic move-
ment that lends strength to opportunism, autonomism and the tendency
to violate discipline, and once more he reminds us that "organization
is the weapon that will emancipate the proletariat," that "organization
is the characteristic weapon of the proletariat in the class struggle."
In Germany, where opportunism is weaker than in France or Italy,
"autonomist tendencies have so far led to nothing but more or less high-
flown declamations against dictators and grand inquisitors, against ex-
communication** and heresy hunting, and to endless cavilling, which
would only result in endless squabbling if replied to by the other side."
It is not surprising that in Russia, where opportunism in the Party
is even weaker than in Germany, autonomist tendencies should have
produced fewer ideas and more "high-flown declamations" and squab-
bling.
It is not surprising that Kautsky arrives at the following conclusion:
"There is probably no other issue on which the revisionists of all countries,
despite their multiplicity of form and hue, are so alike as on the ques-
tion of organization." Karl Kautsky too defines the basic trends of ortho-
doxy and revisionism in this sphere by the "dreadful words": bureaucra-
cy versus democracy. "We are told," he says, "that to give the Party
leadership the right to influence the selection of a candidate (for parlia-
ment) by the constituencies would be a 'shameful violation of the demo-
cratic principle, which demands that all political activity proceed from
the bottom upward, by the independent activity of the masses, and not
from the top downward, by bureaucratic means. . . .' But if there is any
democratic principle, it is that the majority must have its way against
the minority, and not the other way round. ..." The election of a mem-
ber of parliament by any constituency is an important question for the
Party as a whole, which should influence the nomination of candidates,
if only through the Party's representatives (Vertrauensmdnner). "Whoever
considers this too bureaucratic or too centralistic let him suggest that
candidates be nominated by the direct vote of the whole Party member-
ship (sdmmtlicher Parteigenossen) . If he thinks this is not practicable,
he must not complain of a lack of democracy when this function, like many
others that affect the whole Party, is exercised by one or by several
Party bodies." It has. long been a "common law" in the German Party
* Karl Kautsky mentioned Jaurte as an example. The more these people
deviated towards opportunism, the more "they were bound to consider Party
discipline an improper constraint on their free personality."
** Bannatrahl: excommunication. This is the German equivalent of the Russian
"state of siege" and "emergency laws." It is the "dreadful word" of the German
opportunists.
22—685
838 V. I. LENIN
for constituencies to "come to a friendly understanding" with the Party
leadership about the choice of a candidate. "But the Party has grown
too big for this tacit common law to suffice any longer. Common law ceases
to be a law when it ceases to be regarded as natural and self-evident,
when its stipulations, and even its very existence, are called in question.
Then it becomes absolutely essential to formulate the law specifical-
ly, to codify it," to adopt a more "precise statutory definition (statuta-
rische festlegung) and, accordingly, greater strictness (grossere Straffheif)
of organization."
Thus you have, in a different environment, the same struggle be-
tween the opportunist wing and the revolutionary wing of the Party on the
question of organization, the same conflict between autonomism and cen-
tralism, between democracy and "bureaucracy," between the tendency to
relax and the tendency to tighten organization and discipline, between
the mentality of the unstable intellectual and that of the staunch
proletarian, between intellectualist individualism and proletarian sol-
idarity. What, one asks, was the attitude to this conflict of bourgeois
democracy — not the bourgeois democracy which prankish history has
only promised in private to show to Comrade Axelrod some day, but
the real and actual bourgeois democracy which in Germany has spokes-
men no less learned and observant than our own gentlemen of Osvo-
bozhdeniye? German bourgeois democracy at once reacted to the new
controversy and — like Russian bourgeois democracy, like bourgeois de-
mocracy always and everywhere — rose up solidly in behalf of the oppor-
tunist wing of the Social-Democratic Party. The Frankfurter Zeitungy
leading organ of the German stock exchange, published a thunderous
editorial (Frankfurter Zeitung, April 7, 1904, No. 97, evening edition)
which shows that the unscrupulous habit of plagiarizing Axelrod is be-
coming a veritable disease wkh the German press. The stern democrats
of the Frankfurt stock exchange lash furiously at "autocracy" in the So-
cial-Democratic Party, "party dictatorship," at the "autocratic dom-
ination of the Party authorities," at these "excommunications" which
are intended "as it were, to chastise all the revisionists" (recall the "false
accusation of opportunism"), at the insistence on "blind submission,"
"deadening discipline," "servile subordination" and the transforming
of Party members into "political corpses" (that is much stronger than
wheels and cogs!). "All distinctiveness of personality," the knights of
the stock exchange indignantly exclaim at the sight of the undemocratic
regime in the Social-Democratic Party, "all individuality must be per-
secuted, don't you see, for they threaten to lead to the French state of
affairs, to Jauresism and Millerandism, as was stated in so many words
by Zindermann, who made the report on the subject" at the Party Con-
gress of the Saxon Social-Democrats.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 839
And so, in so far as the new catchwords of the new Iskra on organiza-
tion contain any principles at all, there can be no doubt that they arc
opportunist principles. This conclusion is moreover confirmed by the
whole analysis of our Party Congress which divided up into a revolution-
ary wing and an opportunist wing, and by the example of all European
Social-Democratic parties, where opportunism in organization finds ex-
pression in the same tendencies, in the same accusations, and very often
in the same catchwords. Of course, the national peculiarities of the various
parties and the different political conditions in different countries leave
their impress and make German opportunism quite dissimilar from French
opportunism, French opportunism from Italian opportunism and Italian
opportunism from Russian opportunism. But the similarity of the fun-
damental division of all these parties into a revolutionary wing and an
opportunist wing, the similarity of the line of thought and the tenden-
cies of opportunism in organization stand out clearly in spite of all the
difference of conditions mentioned.* The presence of large numbers of
radical intellectuals in the ranks of our Marxists and our Social-Demo-
crats has made, and is making, the existence of opportunism, produced
by their mentality, inevitable in the most varied spheres and in the most
varied forms. We fought opportunism on the fundamental problems of
our world conception, on questions of our program, and a complete di-
vergence of aims inevitably led to an irrevocable division between the
Social-Democrats and the liberals who had corrupted our legal Marxism.
We fought opportunism on tactical questions, and our divergence with
Comrades Krichevsky and Akimov on these less important issues was
naturally only temporary, and was not accompanied by the formation
of different parties. We must now vanquish the opportunism of Mar to v
and Axelrod in matters of organization, which are, of course, even less
fundamental than questions of program and tactics, but which have now
come to the forefront in our Party life.
When we speak of fighting opportunism, we must never forget a fea-
ture that is characteristic of present-day opportunism in every sphere,
namely, its vagueness, diffuseness, elusiveness. An opportunist, by his very
nature, will always evade formulating an issue clearly and decisively,
* No one will doubt today that the old division into Economists and poli-
ticians among the Russian Social-Democrats on questions of tactics was similar to
the division of the whole Social-Democratic movement of the world into opportun-
ists and revolutionaries, although the difference between Comrades Martynov
and Akimov, on the one hand, and Comrades von Vollmar and von Elm or Jaures
and Millerand, on the other, may be very great. Nor will anyone doubt the simi-
larity of the main divisions on questions of organization, in spite of the enormous
difference between the conditions of politically unfranchised and politically free
countries. It is extremely characteristic that the highly principled editors of the
new Iskra, while briefly touching on the controversy between Kautsky and Heine
(No. 64), fearfully evaded the trends of principle of opportunism and orthodoxy
in general on questions of organization.
22*
340 V. L LENIN
he will always seek a middle course, he will always wriggle like a
snake between two mutually exclusive points of view and try to "agree"
with both and to reduce his differences of opinion to petty amendments,
doubts, good and pious suggestions, and so on and so forth. Comrade
Eduard Bernstein, an opportunist in questions of program, "agrees" with
the revolutionary program of his party, and although he is most likely
anxious to have it "radically revised," he considers it inopportune and
inexpedient, and not so important as the elucidation of "general prin-
ciples" of "criticism" (which mainly consist in uncritically borrowing prin-
ciples and catchwords from bourgeois democracy). Comrade von Voll-
mar, an opportunist in questions of tactics, also agrees with the old tac-
tics of revolutionary Social-Democracy and also confines himself mostly
to declamations, petty amendments and sneers rather than openly ad-
vocating any definite "ministerial" tactics. Comrades Martov and Axel-
rod, opportunists in questions of organization, have also so far failed
to produce, though directly challenged to do so, any definite statement of
principles that could be "fixed by statute"; they too, would like, they
most certainly would like, a "radical revision" of our rules of organiza-
tion (the Iskra, No. 58, p. 2, col. 3), but they would prefer to devote them-
selves first to "general problems of organization" (for a really radical
revision of our Rules, which, in spite of § 1 , are centralist rules, would inev-
itably lead, if carried out in the spirit of the new Iskra, to autonomism;
and Comrade Martov, of course, does not like to admit even to himself
that, in principle, his trend is towards autonomism). Their "principles"
of organization therefore display all the colours of the rainbow: the pre-
dominant note is innocent and high-sounding declamations against autoc-
racy and bureaucracy, against blind obedience and wheels and cogs —
declamations that are so innocent that it is very, very difficult to discern
in them what is really concerned with principle and what is really con-
cerned with co-option. But the further you go, the worse it gets: attempts
to analyse and precisely define this detestable "bureaucracy" inevitably
lead to autonomism; attempts to "deepen" and justify inevitably lead
to vindicating backwardness, to khvostism, to Girondist phrasemongering.
At last there emerges the principle of anarchism, as the sole really definite
principle, which for that reason stands out in practice in particular relief
(practice is always in advance of theory). Sneering at discipline — auto-
nomism— anarchism — there you have the ladder by which our oppprtun-
ism in the sphere of organization now climbs and now descends, skipping
from rung to rung and skilfully evading any definite statement of its
principles.* Exactly the same stages are displayed by opportunism in
* Those who recall the debate on §• 1 will now clearly see that the mistake
committed by Comrade Martov and Comrade Axelrod in connection with § 1 had
inevitably to lead, when developed and deepened, to opportunism in matters of
organization. Comrade Martov's initial idea — self-enrolment in the Party —
was nothing but false "democracy," the idea of building the Party from the bottom
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 341
questions of program and tactics — sneering at "orthodoxy," narrowness
and immobility — revisionist "criticism" and minis terialism — bourgeois
democracy.
There is a close psychological connection between this hatred of dis-
cipline and that incessant nagging note of injury which is to be detected
in all the writings of all opportunists today in general, and of our minor-
ity in particular. They are being persecuted, hounded, ejected, besieged
and bullied. There is far more psychological and political truth in
these catchwords than was probably suspected even by the author of the
pleasant and witty joke about bullies and bullied. For you have only
to take the minutes of our Party Congress to see that the minority are all
those who suffer from a sense of injury, all those who at one time or an-
other and for one reason or another were offended by the revolutionary So-
cial-Democrats. There are the Bundists and the Rabocheye Ztyefo-ites,
whom we "offended" so badly that they withdrew from the Congress;
there are the Yuzhny .Ra&oc%-ites, who were mortally offended by the
slaughter of all organizations in general and of their own in particular; there
is Comrade Makhov, who had to put up with offence every time he took
the floor (for every time he did, he invariably made a fool of himself);
and lastly, there are Comrade Martov and Comrade Axelrod, who were
offended by the "false accusation of opportunism" in connection with
§ 1 of the Rules and by their defeat in the elections. All these mortal of-
fences were not the accidental outcome of impermissible witticisms, rude
behaviour, frenzied controversy, slamming of doors and shaking of fists,
as so many philistines imagine to this day, but the inevitable political
outcome of the whole three years' ideological work of the Iskra. If in the
course of these three years we were not just wagging our tongues, but giv-
ing expression to convictions which were to be transformed into deeds,
we had to fight the anti-/sfcra-ites and the "Marsh" at the Congress. And
when, together with Comrade Martov, who had fought in the front line
with vizor up, we had offended such heaps of people, very little remained,
we had only to cffcnd Comrade Axelrod and Comrade Martov ever so
little, for the cup to overflow. Quantity was transformed into quality.
The negation was negated. All the offended forgot their mutual squab-
bles, fell weeping into each other's arms, and raised the banner of "revolt
against Leninism."*
upward. My idea, on the other hand was "bureaucratic" in the sense that the Party
was to be built from the top downward, from the Party Co'g'Tss to the individual
Party organizations. The mentality of the bourgeois intellectual, anarchist phrase-
morgerirg, and opportunist, khvoatiat profundity were all to be discerned already
in the debate on § 1. Comrade Martov says that "new ideas are beginning to be
worked out" by the new Iskra. That is true in the sense that he and Axelrod are
really pushing ideas in a new direction, beginnirg with § 1. The only trouble
is that this direction is an opportunist one. The more they "work" in this direction
the deeper will they sink in the mire.
* This amazing expression is Comrade Martov 's.
342 V. I. LENIN
A revolt is a splendid thing when it is the advanced elements who re-
volt against the reactionary elements. When the revolutionary wing
revolts against the opportunist wing, it is a good thing. When the oppor-
tunist wing revolts against the revolutionary wing, it is a bad business.
Comrade Plekhanov is compelled to take part in this bad business in
the capacity of a prisoner of war, so to speak. He tries to "vent his spleen"
by fishing out isolated clumsy phrases by the author of some resolution
in favour* of the "majority," and exclaiming: "Poor Comrade Lenin! What
fine orthodox supporters he has!" (The Iskra, No. 63, Supplement.)
Well, Comrade Plekhanov, all I can say is that if I am poor, the edi-
tors of the new Islcra are downright paupers. However poor I may be, I
have not yet reached such utter destitution as to have to shut my eyes to
the Party Congress and hunt for material for the exercise of my wit in
the resolutions of committee men. However poor I may be, I am a thou-
sand times better off than those whose supporters do not utter a clumsy
phrase inadvertently, but on every issue — whether in relation to organi-
zation, tactics or program — stubbornly and steadfastly adhere to princi-
ples which are the very opposite of the principles of revolutionary Social-
Democracy. However poor I may be, I have not yet reached the stage where
I have to conceal from the 'public the praises lavished on me by such support-
ers. And that is what the editors of the new Iskra have to do.
Reader, do you know what the Voronezh Committee of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party stands for? If not, read the minutes of
the Party Congress. You will learn from them that the line of that com-
mittee is fully expressed by Comrade Akimov and Comrade Brouckere,
who at the Congress fought the revolutionary wing of the Party all along
the line, and who scores of times were ranked as opportunists by every-
body, from Comrade Plekhanov to Comrade Popov. Well, this Voronezh
Committee, in its January leaflet (No. 12, January 1904), makes the follow-
ing statement:
"A great and important event in the life of our steadily growing Party
took place last year, when the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., a con-
gress of the representatives of its organizations, was held. Convening
a party congress is a very complicated business, and, under the monarchy,
a dangerous and difficult one. It is therefore not surprising that it was
carried out in a far from perfect way, and that the Congress itself, although
it passed off without mishap, did not fulfil all the Party's expectations.
The comrades whom the Conference of 1902 commissioned to convene the
Congress were arrested, and the Congress was arranged by persons who rep-
resented only one of the trends in Russian Social- Democracy, viz., the
"Iskra"-ites. Many organizations of Social-Democrats who did not happen
to he Iskra-itcs were not invited to take part in the work of the Congress;
this is one of the reasons why the task of drawing up a program and rules
for the Party was carried out by 'the Congress in an extremely imperfect
way; the delegates themselves admit that there are important flaws in the
rules 'which may lead to dangerous misunderstandings.' The Iskra-itts
themselves split at the Congress, and many prominent workers in our
Jl,S,D,LfP, who hitherto had appeared to bo in full agreement with the
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 343
Iskra program of action have admitted that many of its views, advocated
mainly by Lenin and Plekhanov, are impracticable. Although the latter
gained the upper hand at the Congress, the mistakes of the theoreticians
are being quickly corrected by the forces of real life and the 'demands
of real work, in which all the non-/«&ra-ites are taking part and which,
since the Congress, have introduced important amendments. The "Iskra"
has undergone a profound change and promises to pay careful heed to the
demands of all workers in the Social-Democratic movement generally.
Thus, although the work of the Congress will have to be revised at the next
Congress, and, as is obvious to the delegates themselves, was unsatisfac-
tory, and therefore cannot be accepted by the Party as unimpeachable deci-
sions, the Congress has cleared up the situation inside the Party, has pro-
vided much material for the further theoretical and organizational work
of the Party, and has been an experience of immense instructive value
for the common work of the Party. The decisions of the Congress and the
rules it has drawn up will be taken into account by all the organizations,
but many will refrain from being guided by them exclusively, in view of their
obvious imperfections.
"Fully realizing the importance of the common work of the Par-
ty, the Voronezh Committee actively responded in all matters concern-
ing the organization of the Congress. It fully recognizes the import-
ance of what has taken place at the Congress and welcomes the change
undergone by 'Iskra,' which has become the Central Organ (chief organ).
"Although the state of affairs in the Party and in the Central
Committee does not satisfy us as yet, we trust that by common
effort the difficult work of organizing the Party will be perfected.
In view of false rumours, the Voronezh Commit tee informs the com-
rades that there is no question of the Voronezh Committee leav-
ing the Party. The Voronezh Committee realizes perfectly what
a dangerous precedent might be created by the withdrawal of a
workers' organization like the Voronezh Committee from the
R.S.D.L.P., what a reproach this would be to the Party, and how
disadvantageous it would be to workers' organizations which
might follow this example. We must not cause new splits, but
persistently strive to unite all class -conscious workers and Social-
ists in one party. Besides, the Second Congress was not a constit-
uent congress, but an ordinary one. Expulsion from the Party
can only be by decision of a Party court, and no organization, not
even the Central Committee, has the right to expel any Social-
Democratic organization from the Party. Furthermore, the Second
Congress adopted paragraph 8 of the Rules, according to which
every organization is autonomous in its local affairs, and this fully
entitles the Voronezh Committee to put its views on organization
into practice and advocate them in the Party."
The editors of the new Iskra, in quoting this leaflet in No. 61, reprint-
ed the second half of this tirade, which we give here in large type; as
for the first half, here printed in small type, the editors preferred to omit it*
They were ashamed.
344 V. I. LENIN
R. A FEW WORDS ON DIALECTICS. TWO REVOLUTIONS
A general glance at the development of our Party crisis will readily
show that in the main, with minor exceptions, the composition of the
two contending sides remained unchanged throughout. It was a struggle
between the revolutionary wing and the opportunist wing in our Party.
But this,struggle passed through the most varied stages, and anyone who
wants to understand the vast amount of literature that has already been
accumulated, the mass of fragmentary evidence, passages torn from their
context, isolated accusations, and so on and so forth, must thoroughly
familiarize himself with the peculiarities of each of these stages.
In each of these stages the circumstances of the struggle and the imme-
diate object of attack are essentially different; each stage is, as it were,
a separate battle in one general military campaign. Our struggle cannot
be understood at all unless the concrete circumstances of each battle are
studied. But once that is done we shall clearly find that the develop-
ment does actually proceed dialectically, by way of contradictions: the
minority becomes the majority, and the majority becomes the minority;
each side passes from the defensive to the offensive, and from the offen-
sive to the defensive; the starting of the ideological struggle (§ 1) is ''negat-
ed" and gives place to an all-pervading squabbler* but then begins the
"negation of the negation," and, having found a way of living more or
less in "peace and harmony" on the various central bodies, we return to
the starting point, the purely ideological struggle; but by now this "the-
sis" has been enriched by all the results of the "antithesis" and has become
a higher synthesis, in which the isolated, casual error in connection with
§ 1 has grown into a quasi-system of opportunist views on matters of organi-
zation, and in which the connection between this fact and the basic
division of our Party into a revolutionary wing and an opportunist wing
becomes increasingly apparent to all. In a word, not only do oats grow
according to Hegel, but the Russian Social-Democrats war among
themselves according to Hegel.
But the great Hegelian dialectics which Marxism made its own, having
first turned it right side up again, must never be confused with the vulgar
trick of justifying the zigzags of politicians who swing over from the revo-
lutionary wing to the opportunist wing of the Party, or with the vulgar
habit of lumping together distinct statements, the distinct incidents
in the development of different stages of a single process. Genuine dialec-
tics does not justify individual errors, but studies the inevitable turns,
proving that they were inevitable by a detailed study of the process in all
* The difficult problem of drawing a line between squabbling and a difference
of principle now solves itself: all that relates to co-option is squabbling; all that
relates to an analysis of the struggle at the Corgress, to the dispute over § 1 and
to the swing towards opportunism and anarchism is a difference of principle.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 345
its concreteness. The basic principle of dialectics is that there is no such
thing as abstract truth, truth is always concrete. . . . And, one thing
more, the great Hegelian dialectics should never be confused with that
vulgar worldly wisdom so well expressed by the Italian saying: mettere la
coda dove non va il capo (sticking in the tail where the head will not go
through).
The outcome of the dialectical development of our Party struggle has
been two revolutions. The Party Congress was a real revolution, as Com-
rade Martov justly remarked in his "Once More in the Minority." The wits
of the minority are also right when they say: "The world moves in revolu-
tions; well, we have made a revolution!" They did indeed make a revolution
after the Congress; and it is true, too, that generally speaking the world
does move in revolutions. But the concrete significance of each concrete
revolution is not defined by this general aphorism; there are revolutions
which are more like reaction, to paraphrase the unforgettable expression
of the unforgettable Comrade Makhov. We must know whether it was the
revolutionary wing or the opportunist wing of the Party which was the ac-
tual force that made the revolution, we must know whether it was revo-
lutionary or opportunist principles that inspired the fighters, before we
can determine whether the "world" (our Party) was moved forward or
backward by any concrete revolution.
Our Party Congress was unique and unprecedented in the history of
the Russian revolutionary movement. For the first time a secret revolu-
tionary party succeeded in emerging from the darkness of underground
life into broad daylight, displaying to the world the whole course and
outcome of the struggle within our Party, the whole nature of our Party
and of each of its more or less noticeable sections in relation to program,
tactics and organization. For the first time we suceeded in throwing off
the traditions of circle looseness and revolutionary philistinism, in bring-
ing together dozens of the most varied groups, many of which had been
fiercely warring among themselves and had been linked together solely
by the force of an idea and were prepared (in principle, that is) to sacri-
fice all their group aloofness and group independence for the sake of the
great whole which we were for the first time actually creating — the Party.
But in politics sacrifices are not obtained gratis, they have to be won in
battle. The battle over the slaughter of the organizations was bound to be
terribly fierce. The fresh breeze of free and open struggle blew into a gale.
The gale swept away — and a good thing that it did! — every conceivable
remnant of the circle interests, sentiments and traditions without excep-
tion, and for the first time created authoritative bodies that were really
Party bodies.
But it is one thing to call oneself something, and another to be it.
It is one thing to sacrifice the circle system in principle for the benefit
of the Party, and another to renounce one's own circle. The fresh breeze
proved to be too fresh for those who were used to musty philistinism. "The
346 V. I. LENIN
Party was unable to stand the strain of its first congress," as Comrade
Martov rightly put it (inadvertently) in his "Once More in the Minority."
The sense of injury over the slaughter of the organizations was too strong.
The furious gale raised all the mud from the bottom of our Party stream;
and the mud took its revenge. The old hidebound circle spirit overpowered
the newly born Party spirit. The opportunist wing of the Party, utter-
ly routed though it had been, defeated — temporarily, of course — the rev-
olutionary wing, having been accidentally reinforced by the Akimov
windfall.
The result of all this is the new Iskra, which is compelled to develop
and deepen the error its editors committed at the Party Congress. The
old Iskra taught the truths of revolutionary struggle. The new Iskra
teaches the worldly wisdom of yielding and living in harmony with every-
one. The old IsTcra was the organ of militant orthodoxy. The new Iskra
treats us to a recrudescence of opportunism — chiefly on questions of
organization. The old Iskra earned the honour of being detested by the
opportunists, both Russian and West-European. The new Iskra has "grown
wise" and will soon cease to be ashamed of the praises lavished on it by
the extreme opportunists. The old Iskra marched unswervingly towards its
goal, and there was no discrepancy between its word and its deed. The
inherent falsity of the position of the new Iskra inevitably leads — independ-
ently even of anyone's will or intention — to political hypocrisy. It cries
out against the circle spirit in order to conceal the victory of the circle
spirit over the Party spirit. It pharisaically condemns splits, as if one can
imagine any way of avoiding splits in any at all organized party except
by the subordination of the minority to the majority. It says that heed
must be paid to revolutionary public opinion, yet, while keeping dark
the praises of the Akimovs, it indulges in petty scandal-mongering about
the committees of the revolutionary wing of the Party! How shameful!
How they have disgraced our old Iskral
One step forward, two steps back. ... It happens in the lives of individ-
uals, and it happens in the history of nations and in the development
of parties. It would be criminal cowardice to doubt even for a moment the
inevitable and complete triumph of the principles of revolutionary So-
cial-Democracy, of proletarian organization and Party discipline. We
have already won a great deal, and we must go on fighting, undeterred
by reverses, fighting steadfastly, scorning the philistine methods of circle
scrapping, doing our very utmost to preserve the single party tie among
all the Russian Social-Democrats which has been established at the cost
of so much effort, and striving by dint of stubborn and systematic work
to make all Party members, and the workers in particular, fully and intel-
ligently acquainted with the duties of Party members, with the struggle
at the Second Party Congress, with all the causes and all the stages of our
disagreements, and with the utter disastrous ness of opportunism, which,
in the sphere of organisation, as in the sphere of our program and out
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 947
tactics, helplessly surrenders to the bourgeois psychology, uncritically
adopts the point of view of bourgeois democracy, and blunts the weapon
of the class struggle of the proletariat.
In its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but
organization. Disunited by the rule of anarchic competition in the bourgeois
world, ground down by forced labour for capital, constantly thrust
back to the "lower depths" of utter destitution, savagery and degenera-
tion, the proletariat can become, and inevitably will become,
an invincible force only when its ideological unification by the principles
of Marxism is consolidated by the material unity of an organization
which will weld millions of toilers into an army of the working class.
Neither the decrepit rule of Russian tsardom, nor the senile rule of inter-
national capital will be able to withstand this army. Its ranks will become
more and more serried, in spite of all zigzags and backward steps, in
spite of the opportunist phrasemongering of the Girondists of present-
day Social-Democracy, in spite of the smug praise of the antiquated cir-
cle spirit, and in spite of the tinsel and fuss of intellectual anarchism.
First published
as a separate pamphlet
in May 1904, Geneva
THE PERIOD
OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
AND THE
FIRST RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
TWO TACTICS OF SOCIALJ)EMOCRACY
IN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION
PREFACE
In a revolutionary period it is very difficult to keep abreast of events,
which provide an astonishing amount of new material for an evaluation of
the tactical slogans of revolutionary parties. The present pamphlet was
written before the Odessa events. * We have already pointed out in the Pro-
letary (No. 9 — "Revolution Teaches") that these events have forced even
those Social -Democrats who created the "uprising-as-a-process" theory, and
who rejected propaganda for a provisional revolutionary government, virtu-
ally to pass over, or to begin to pass over, to the side of their opponents. Rev-
olution undoubtedly teaches with a rapidity and thoroughness which appear
incredible in peaceful periods of political development. And, what is par-
ticularly important, it teaches not only the leaders, but the masses as well.
There is not the slightest doubt that the revolution will teach social-de-
mocratism to the working-class masses in Russia. The revolution will con-
firm the program and tactics of the Social-Democratic Party in actual prac-
tice, by demonstrating the true nature of the various classes of society, by
demonstrating the bourgeois character of our democracy and the real aspira-
tions of the peasantry,which,while it is revolutionary in the bourgeois -dem-
ocratic sense, harbours within itself, not the idea of "socialization," but
a new class struggle between the peasant bourgeoisie and the rural proletar-
iat. The old illusions of the old Narodniks, which are so clearly reflected,
for instance, in the draft program of the "Socialist- Revolutionary Party"
in the attitude it takes towards the question of the development of capi-
talism in Russia, towards the question of the democratic character of our
"society," and towards the question of the meaning of a complete victory
of a peasant uprising — all these illusions will be mercilessly and complete-
ly blown to the winds by the revolution. For the first time it will give the
various classes their real political baptism. These classes will emerge from
the revolution with a definite political physiognomy, for they will have
revealed themselves, not only in the programs and tactical slogans of
their ideologists, but also in the open political action of the masses.
* Reference is to the mutiny on the armoured cruiser Potemkin. (Author's
note to the 1908 edition. — Ed.)
351
62 V. I. LENIN
Undoubtedly, the revolution will teach us, and will teach the masses o£
the people. But the question that now confronts a militant political party
is whether we shall be able to teach the revolution anything; whether we
shall be able to make use of our correct Social-Democratic doctrine, of our
bond with the only thoroughly revolutionary class, the proletariat, to put a
proletarian imprint on the revolution, to carry the revolution to a real and
decisive victory, not in word but in deed, and to paralyse the instability,
half-heartedness and treachery of the democratic bourgeoisie.
It is to this end that we must direct all our efforts. And the achievement
of this end will depend, on the one hand, on the correctness of our appraisal
of the political situation, on the correctness of our tactical slogans, and, on
the other hand, on the extent to which these slogans are supported by the
real righting strength of the working-class masses. All the usual, regular,
current work of all the organizations and groups of our Party, the work of
propaganda, agitation and organization, is directed towards strengthening
and extending the ties with the masses. This work is always necessary; but
less than at any other time can it be considered sufficient in a revolutionary
period. At such a time the working class has an instinctive urge for open rev-
olutionary action, and we must learn to define the aims of this action cor-
rectly, and then spread a knowledge and understanding of these aims as
widely as possible. It should not be forgotten that the current pessimism
about our ties with the masses serves more than ever as a screen for bourgeois
ideas regarding the role of the proletariat in the revolution. Undoubtedly,
we still have a great deal to do to educate and organize the working class;
but the whole question now is: where should the main political emphasis in
this education and organization be placed? On the trade unions and legal-
ly existing societies, or on armed insurrection, on the work of creating a
revolutionary army and a revolutionary government? Both serve to edu-
cate and organize the working jclass. Both are, of course, necessary. But the
whole question now, in the present revolution, amounts to this: what is to
be emphasized in the work of educating and organizing the working class —
the former or the latter?
The outcome of the revolution depends on whether the working class
will play the part of a subsidiary to the bourgeoisie, a subsidiary that is
powerful in the force of its onslaught against the autocracy but impotent
politically, or whether it will play the part of leader of the people's rev-
olution. The class-conscious representatives of the bourgeoisie are perfect-
ly aware of this. That is precisely why the Osvobozkdeniye praises Akimo-
vism, "Economism" in Social-Democracy, which is now placing the trade
unions and the legally existing societies in the forefront. That is why
Mr. Struve welcomes (the Osvobozhdeniye, No. 72) the Akimovist trend in
the principles of the new Iskra. That is why he comes down so heavily on
the detested revolutionary narrowness of the decisions of the Third Con-
gress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party.
In order to lead the masses, it is particularly important for Social-De-
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 353
mocracy at the present time to advance correct tactical slogans. There is
nothing more dangerous in time of revolution than underrating the import-
ance of tactical slogans consistent with our principles. For example, the
lakra, in No. 104, virtually passes over to the side of its opponents in the
Social-Democratic movement, and yet, at the same time, disparages the
significance of slogans and tactical decisions which are in advance of the
times and which indicate the path along which the movement is progressing,
although with a number of failures, errors, etc. On the contrary, the working
-out of correct tactical decisions is of immense importance for a party which
desires to lead the proletariat in the spirit of the consistent principles of
Marxism, and not merely to drag along in the wake of events. In the reso-
lutions of the Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party and of the Conference of the section which has split away from the
Party,* we have the most precise, most carefully thought-out, and most
-complete expression of tactical views — views not casually expressed by in-
dividual writers, but accepted by the responsible representatives of the
Social-Democratic proletariat. Our Party is in advance of all the others, for
it has a precise program, accepted by all. It must also set the other parties
an example of strict adherence to its tactical resolutions, in contradis-
tinction to the opportunism of the democratic bourgeoisie of the Osvo-
bozhdeniye and the revolutionary phrasemongering of the Socialist-
Revolutionaries, who only during the revolution suddenly bethought them-
selves to come forward with a "draft" of a program and investigate for the
first time whether it is a bourgeois revolution that they are witnessing.
That is why we think it a most urgent task of the revolutionary Social-
Democrats to study carefully the tactical resolutions of the Third Congress
of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and of the Conference, to
define what deviations have been made in them from the principles of Marx-
ism, and to get a clear understanding of the concrete tasks of the Social-
Democratic proletariat in a democratic revolution. It is to this task that
the present pamphlet is devoted. The testing of our tactics from the stand-
point of the principles of Marxism and of the lessons of the revolution is
also necessary for those who really desire to pave the way for unity of tactics
as a basis for the future complete unity of the whole Russian Social-Demo-
cratic Labour Party, and not to confine themselves to admonitions alone.
N. LENIN
July 1905
* The Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (held
in London in May 1905) was attended only by Bolsheviks, while in the "Confer-
ence" (held in Geneva at the same time) only Mensheviks participated. In the
present pamphlet the latter are frequently referred to as new /afcra-ites because
while continuing to publish the lakra they declared, through their then adherent
Trotsky, that there was a gulf between the old and the new Iskra. (Author's note
to the 1908 edition.— Ed.
23-685
354 V. I. LENIN
1. AN URGENT POLITICAL QUESTION
At the present revolutionary juncture the question of the convocation of
a popular constituent assembly is on the order of the day. Opinions differ
as to how to solve this question. Three political tendencies are to be ob-
served. The tsarist government admits the necessity of convening represen-
tatives of the people, but under no circumstances does it intend to allow
this assembly to be a popular and constituent assembly. It seems willing to
agree, if we are to believe the newspaper reports on the work of the Bulygin
Commission, to a consultative assembly, to be elected without freedom to
carry on agitation and on the basis of strict qualifications or a strict class
system. The revolutionary proletariat, inasmuch as it is guided by the
Social-Democratic Party, demands complete transfer of power to a constit-
uent assembly, and for this purpose strives to obtain not only universal
suffrage and complete freedom to conduct agitation, but also the immediate
overthrow of the tsarist government and its replacement by a provisional
revolutionary government. Finally, the liberal bourgeoisie, expressing
its wishes through the leaders of the so-called "Constitutional-Democratic
Party," does not demand the overthrow of the tsarist government, does not
advance the slogan calling for a provisional government, and does not in-
sist on real guarantees that the elections be absolutely free and fair and that
the assembly of representatives be a genuinely popular and a genuinely
constituent assembly. As a matter of fact, the liberal bourgeoisie, which
is the only serious social support of the Osvobozhdeniye tendency, is striv-
ing to effect as peaceful a deal as possible between the tsar and the revo-
lutionary people, a deal, moreover, that would give a maximum of power
to itself, the bourgeoisie, and a minimum to the revolutionary people — the
proletariat and the peasantry.
Such is the political situation at the present time. Suchrare the three
main political trends, corresponding to the three main social forces of con-
temporary Russia. We have shown on more than one occasion (in the Pro-
letary, Nos. 3, 4, 5) how the Osvobozhdentei use pseudo-democratic phrases
to cover up their half-hearted, or, to put it more directly and plainly, their
treacherous, perfidious policy towards the revolution. Let us now consider
how the Social-Democrats appraise the tasks of the moment. The two resolu-
tions passed quite recently by the Third Congress of the Russian Social-
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 365
Democratic Labour Party and by the "Conference" of the section which has
split away from the Party provide excellent material for this purpose.
The question as to which of these resolutions more correctly appraises the
political situation and more correctly defines the tactics of the revolution-
ary proletariat is of enormous importance, and every Social -Democrat who
is anxious to fulfil his duties as a propagandist, agitator and organizer intel-
ligently must study this question very carefully, leaving all irrelevant con-
siderations entirely aside.
By Party tactics we mean the political conduct of the Party, or the na-
ture, tendency and methods of its political activity. Tactical resolutions
are adopted by Party congresses in order to define exactly the political con-
duct of the Party as a whole with regard to new tasks, or in view of a new
political situation. Such a new situation has been created by the revolution
that has started in Russia, i.e., the complete, decided and open rupture
between the overwhelming majority of the people and the tsarist govern-
ment. The new question concerns the practical methods to be adopted in con-
vening a genuinely popular and genuinely constituent assembly (the question
of such an assembly was officially settled by the Social-Democratic Party
in theory long ago, before any other party, in its Party program). Since the
people have parted company with the government, and the masses realize
the necessity of setting up a new order, the party which made it its object
to overthrow the government must necessarily consider what government to
set up in place of the old government which is to be overthrown. A new
question, the question of a provisional revolutionary government, arises.
In order to give a complete answer to this question the Party of the class-
conscious proletariat must make clear: 1) the significance of a provisional
revolutionary government in the revolution now going on and in the entire
struggle of the proletariat in general; 2) its attitude towards a provisional
revolutionary government; 3) the precise conditions of Social- Democratic
participation in this government; 4) the conditions under which pressure is
to be brought to bear on this government from below , r.e., in the event that
the Social-Democrats do not participate in it. Only after all these ques-
tions are cleared up, will the political conduct of the Party in this sphere be
principled, clear and firm.
Let us now consider how the resolution of the Third Congress of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party answers these questions. The fol-
lowing is the full text of the resolution:
"RESOLUTION ON PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT
Whereas:
"1) both the immediate interests of the proletariat and the inter-
ests of its struggle for the ultimate aims of Socialism require the wid-
est possible measure of political liberty and, consequently, the re-
placement of the autocratic form of government by a democratic
republic;
23"
866 V. I. LENIN
"2) the establishment of a democratic republic in Russia is possible
only as a result of a victorious popular uprising, whose organ of
power will be a provisional revolutionary government, which alone
will be capable of securing complete freedom of agitation during the
election campaign and of convening a constituent assembly that will
really express the will of the people, an assembly elected on the basis
of universal and equal suffrage, direct elections and secret ballot;
"3) under the present social and economic order this democratic
revolution in Russia will not weaken, but strengthen the domination
of the bourgeoisie, which at a certain moment will inevitably try,
stopping at nothing, to take away from the Russian proletariat as
many of the gains of the revolutionary period as possible.
"The Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party resolves that:
"a) it is necessary to disseminate among the working class a
concrete idea of the most probable course of the revolution and of the
necessity, at a certain moment in the revolution, for the appearance
of a provisional revolutionary government, from which the proletar-
iat will demand the realization of all the immediate political and eco-
nomic demands contained in our program (the minimum program);*
"b) subject to the relation of forces, and other factors which cannot
be exactly determined beforehand, representatives of our Party may
participate in the provisional revolutionary government for the pur-
pose of relentless struggle against all counter-revolutionary attempts
and of the defence of the independent interests of the working class;
"c) an indispensable condition for such participation is that the
Party should exercise strict control over its representatives and that
the independence of the Social-Democratic Party, which is striving for
a complete Socialist revolution and, consequently, is irreconcilably
hostile to all bourgeois parties, should be strictly maintained;
"d) whether the participation of Social-Democrats in the provi-
sional revolutionary government prove possible or not, we must pro-
* The Minimum Program — a program adopted at the Second Congress of the
Russian Social -Democratic Labour Party.
"This program consisted of two parts: a maximum program and a minimum
program. The maximum program dealt with the principal aim of the working-
class party, namely, the Socialist revolution, the overthrow of the power of the
capitalists, and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The min-
imum program dealt with the immediate aims of the Party, aims to be achieved
before the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, namely,, the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy,
nthe establishment of a democratic republic, the introduction of an 8-hour working
day, the abolition of all survivals of serfdom in the countryside, and the restoration
to the peasants of the cut-off lands (otrezki) of which they had been deprived
by the landlords." (History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [Bolshe-
vik*], Short Course, p. 41). — Ed.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 357
pagate among the broadest masses of the proletariat the necessity for
permanent pressure to be brought to bear upon the provisional gov-
ernment by the armed proletariat, led by the Social-Democratic
Party, for the purpose of defending, consolidating and extending the
gains of the revolution."
2. WHAT DOES THE RESOLUTION OF THE THIRD CONGRESS
OF THE R.S.D.L.P. ON A PROVISIONAL
REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT TEACH US?
The resolution of the Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party, as is evident from its title, is devoted wholly and exclusive-
ly to the question of a provisional revolutionary government. Hence, it
includes the question as to whether Social-Democrats may participate in a
provisional revolutionary government. On the other hand, it deals only
with the question of a provisional revolutionary government and with noth-
ing else; consequently, it does not include, for example, the question of
the "conquest of power" in general, etc. Was the Congress right in eliminat-
ing this and similar questions? Undoubtedly it was right in doing so, since
the political situation of Russia does not give rise to such questions as im-
mediate issues. On the contrary, the issue raised by the whole of the people
at the present time is the overthrow of the autocracy and the convocation
of a constituent assembly. Party congresses must take up and decide issues
which are of vital political importance by reason of the prevailing condi-
tions and the objective course of social development, and not those ques-
tions which this or that writer happened to touch upon opportunely or inop-
portunely.
Of what import is a provisional revolutionary government in the pre-
sent revolution, and in the general struggle of the proletariat? The resolu-
tion of the Congress explains this by pointing at the very outset to the need
for the "widest possible measure of political liberty," both from the stand-
point of the immediate interests of the proletariat and from the standpoint
of the "ultimate aims of Socialism." And complete political liberty re-
quires that the tsarist autocracy be replaced by a democratic republic, as has
already been recognized by our Party program. The stress laid in the reso-
lution of the Congress on the slogan of a democratic republic is necessary
both as a matter of logic and in point of principle; for it is precisely com-
plete freedom that the proletariat, as the foremost champion of democracy,
is striving to attain. Moreover, it is all the more opportune to stress this at
the present time because right now the monarchists, namely, the so-called
Constitutional-"Democratic," or Osvobozhdeniye Party in our country, are
flying the colours of "democracy." In order to establish a republic, an as-
sembly of people's representatives is absolutely indispensable. Moreover,
such an assembly must be a popular (on the basis of universal and equal
358 V. I. LENIN
suffrage, direct elections and secret ballot) and a constituent assembly.
This too is recognized in the Congress resolution, further on. But the reso-
lution does not stop there. In order to establish a new order "that will really
express the will of the people" it is not enough to call a representative as-
sembly a constituent assembly. It is necessary for this assembly to have the
authority and power to "constitute." Taking this into consideration, the
resolution of the Congress does not confine itself to a formal slogan calling
for a "constituent assembly," but adds the material conditions which alone
will enable that assembly really to carry out its tasks. Such specification
of the conditions that will enable an assembly which is constituent in name
to become constituent in fact is absolutely imperative, for, as we have point-
ed out more than once, the liberal bourgeoisie, as represented by the Con-
stitutional-Monarchist party, is deliberately distorting the slogan of a pop-
ular constituent assembly, reducing it to a hollow phrase.
The Congress resolution states that a provisional revolutionary govern-
ment alone, one, moreover, that will be the organ of a victorious popular
uprising, can secure full freedom of agitation in the election campaign and
convene an assembly that will really express the will of the people. Is this
postulate correct? Those who would undertake to refute it would have to
assert that it is possible for the tsarist government not to side with the reac-
tion, that the tsarist government is capable of being neutral during the elec-
tions, that it will see to it that the will of the people is really expressed.
Such assertions are so absurd that no one would venture to defend them
openly; but they are being dragged in secretly, under cover of liberalism,
by these same Osvobozkden si. A constituent assembly must be convened
by someone; someone must guarantee the freedom and fairness of the elec-
tions; someone must invest such an assembly with power and authority.
Only a revolutionary government, which is the organ of the uprising, can
desire this in all sincerity and be capable of doing all that is required to
achieve this. The tsarist government will inevitably work against this. A
liberal government, which will come to terms with the tsar, and which does
not rely entirely on the popular uprising, cannot sincerely desire this and
could not accomplish it even if it desired it most sincerely. Therefore, the
resolution of the Congress gives the only correct and entirely consistent
democratic slogan.
However, an evaluation of the role of a provisional revolutionary govern-
ment would be incomplete and false if the class nature of the democratic
revolution were lost sight of. The resolution therefore adds that the revo-
lution will strengthen the domination of the bourgeoisie. This is inevi-
table under the present, i.e., capitalist, social and economic system. And
the strengthening of the domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat
after the latter has secured some measure of political liberty must inevita-
bly lead to a desperate struggle between them for power, must lead to des-
perate attempts on the part of the bourgeoisie "to take away from the pro-
letariat the gains of the revolutionary period." That is why the proletariat,
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 369
which is fighting for democracy in front of all and at the head of all, must
not forget for a single moment about the new antagonisms latent in hour-
geois democracy and about the new struggle.
Thus, the section of the resolution which we have just reviewed fully
sets forth the role of a provisional revolutionary government; in its relation
to the struggle for freedom and for a republic, to a constituent assembly
and to the democratic revolution, which clears the ground for a new class
struggle.
The next question is, what should be the attitude of the proletariat in
general towards a provisional revolutionary government? The Congress re-
solution answers this first of all by directly advising the Party to spread
among the working class the conviction that a provisional revolutionary
government is necessary. The working class must be made aware of this.
Whereas the "democratic" bourgeoisie leaves the question of the over-
throw of the tsarist government in the shade, \ve must push it to the fore and
insist on the necessity of a provisional revolutionary government. More
than that, we must outline a program of action for such a government that
would conform with the objective conditions of the historic period through
which we are now passing and with the aims of proletarian democracy.
This program is the entire minimum program of our Party, the program of
the immediate political and economic reforms which, on the one hand, are
fully possible of reali2ation on the basis of the existing social and economic
relationships and, on the other hand, are requisite for the next step for-
ward, for the achievement of Socialism.
Thus, the resolution fully explains the nature and aims of a provisional
revolutionary government. By its origin and fundamental nature such a
government must be the organ of the popular uprising. Its formal purpose
must be to serve as the medium for convening a popular constituent assem-
bly. The substance of its activities must be to put into effect the minimum
program of proletarian democracy, which is the only program capable of safe-
guarding the interests of the people which has risen against the autocracy.
It might be argued that a provisional government, since it is only pro-
visional, cannot carry out a constructive program which has not yet re-
ceived the approval of the whole of the people. Such an argument would
merely be the sophistry of reactionaries and "absolutists." To abstain
from carrying out a constructive program is tantamount to tolerating the
existence of the feudal regime of the putrid autocracy. Only a government
of traitors to the cause of the revolution could tolerate such a regime, but
not a government which is the organ of a popular uprising. It would be
mockery for anyone to propose that we should refrain from exercising
freedom of assembly pending the confirmation of such freedom by a con-
stituent assembly, on the plea that the constituent assembly might not
•confirm freedom of assembly! It is just as much of a mockery to object to
the immediate execution of the minimum program by a provisional revo-
lutionary government.
360 V. I. LENIN
Finally, let us note that by making it the task of the provisional rev-
olutionary government to put into effect the minimum program, the
resolution eliminates the absurd, semi-anarchist ideas about putting the
maximum program into effect immediately, about the conquest of power
for a Socialist revolution. The degree of economic development of Rus-
sia (an objective condition) and the degree of class consciousness and
organization of the broad masses of the proletariat (a subjective condi-
tion inseparably connected with the objective condition) make the imme-
diate complete emancipation of the working class impossible. Only the
most ignorant people can ignore the bourgeois nature of the democratic
revolution which is now taking place; only the most naive optimist can.
forget how little as yet the masses of the workers are informed of the aims
of Socialism and of the methods of achieving it. And we are all convinced
that the emancipation of the workers can be effected only by the workers
themselves; a Socialist revolution is out of the question unless the masses
become class conscious, organized, trained and educated in open class
struggle against the entire bourgeoisie. In answer to the anarchist objections
that we are putting off the Socialist revolution, we say: we are not put-
ting it off, but are taking the first step towards it, in the only possible
way, along the only correct road, namely, the road of a democratic re-
public. Whoever wants to arrive at Socialism by a different road, other
than that of political democracy, will inevitably arrive at absurd and
reactionary conclusions, both in the economic and the political sense.
If any workers ask us at the given moment why not go ahead and carry
out our maximum program we shall answer by pointing out how far the
masses of the democratically disposed people still are from Socialism,,
how undeveloped class antagonisms still are, how unorganized the prole-
tarians still are. Organize hundreds of thousands of workers all over
Russia; enlist the sympathy of millions for our program! Try to do this
without confining yourselves to high-sounding but hollow anarchist phras-
es— and you will see at once that in order to achieve this organization,,
in order to spread Socialist enlightenment, we must achieve the fullest
possible measure of democratic reforms.
Let us proceed further. Once we are clear about the role of a provisional
revolutionary government and the attitude of the proletariat toward it,,
the following question arises: would it be right for us to participate in
it (action from above) and, if so, under what conditions? What should
be our action from below? The resolution supplies precise answers to both
these questions. It definitely declares that it is admissible in principle
for Social-Democrats to participate in a provisional revolutionary gov-
ernment (during the period of a democratic revolution, the period of
struggle for a republic). By this declaration we once and for all disso-
ciate ourselves both from the anarchists, who answer this question in
the negative on principle, and from the khvostists among the Social-Dem-
ocrats (like Martynov and the new Isfcra-ites) who have tried to frighten.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 861
us with the prospect of a situation wherein it might prove necessary
for us to participate in such a government. Through this declaration the
Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party re jected^.
once and for all, the idea expressed by thenewlsfcra that the participation
of Social-Democrats in a provisional revolutionary government would
be a variety of Millerandism, that it is inadmissible in principle, as sanc-
tifying the bourgeois order, etc.
But its admissibility in principle does not, of course, solve the ques-
tion of its practical expediency. Under what conditions is this new fornr
of struggle — the struggle "from above," recognized by the Congress of
the Party — expedient? It goes without saying that at the present time
it is impossible to speak of concrete conditions, such as relation of forces,,
etc., and the resolution, naturally, refrains from defining these con-
ditions in advance. No intelligent person would venture at the present
time to prophesy anything on this subject. What we can and must do is.
to determine the nature and aim of our participation. This is precisely
what is done in the resolution, which points out two objectives of our
participation: 1) a relentless struggle against counter-revolutionary at-
tempts, and 2) the defence of the independent interests of the working
class. At a time when the liberal bourgeoisie is beginning to talk assiduous-
ly about the psychology of reaction (see Mr. Struve's most instructive
"Open Letter" in the OsvobozMeniye, No. 72), in an attempt to frighten
the revolutionary people and to impel it to show a spirit of compliance
with regard to the autocracy — at such a time it is particularly appro-
priate for the Party of the proletariat to call attention to the task of waging;
a real war against counter-revolution. In the final analysis, force alone can.
settle the great problems of political liberty and the class struggle, and
it is our business to prepare and organize this force and to employ it active-
ly, not only for defensive purposes, but also for the purpose of attack*
The long reign of political reaction in Europe, which has lasted almost
uninterruptedly since the days of the Paris Commune, has too greatly
accustomed us to the idea that action can proceed only "from below," has.
too greatly inured us to seeing only defensive struggles. There can be no
doubt that we have now entered a new era: a period of political upheavals*
and revolutions has been ushered in. In a period such as Russia is passing;
through at the present time, it is impermissible to be circumscribed by
the old set formulae. We must propagate the idea of action from above*
we must prepare for the most energetic, offensive action, and we must
study the conditions under which these actions are to take place and the
forms they are to assume. The Congress resolution lays special emphasis-
on two of these conditions: one refers to the formal aspect of Social-Dem-
ocratic participation in a provisional revolutionary government (strict
control of the Party over its representatives), the other — to the very nature
of such participation (never for an instant to lose sight of the aimof"
effecting a complete Socialist revolution).
362 V. I. LENIN
Having thus explained from all aspects the policy of the Party with
regard to action "from above" — this new, hitherto almost unprecedented
method of struggle — the resolution proceeds to provide also for the even-
tuality that we shall not be able to act from above. We must exercise
pressure on the provisional revolutionary government from below in any
case. In order to be able to exercise this pressure from below, the proleta-
riat must be armed — for in a revolutionary situation matters develop
very quickly to the stage of open civil war — and must be led by the
Social-Democratic Party.The object of its armed pressure is that of "defend-
ing, consolidating and extending the gains of the revolution," i.e., those
gains which from the standpoint of the interests of the proletariat must
consist in the fulfilment of the whole of our minimum program.
This brings our brief analysis of the resolution of the Third Congress
on a provisional revolutionary government to a close. As the reader can
see, the resolution explains the importance of this new question,the attitude
of the Party of the proletariat toward it, and the policy of the Party
both inside a provisional revolutionary government and outside of it.
Let us now consider the corresponding resolution of the "Conference."
3. WHAT IS A "DECISIVE VICTORY OF THE REVOLUTION
OVER TSARISM"?
The resolution of the "Conference" is devoted to the question: "The
Conquest of Power and Participation in a Provisional Government.99* As
we have already pointed out, the very manner in which the question is
put betrays confusion. On the one hand the question is presented in a
narrow way: It deals only with our participation in a provisional govern-
ment and not in general with the tasks of the Party in regard to a provi-
sional revolutionary government. On the other hand, two totally dissimi-
lar questions are confounded, viz., the question of our participation in
one of the stages of the democratic revolution and the question of the /So-
cialist revolution. Indeed, the "conquest of power" by Social-Democracy
is a Socialist revolution, nor can it be anything else if we use these words
in their direct and usually accepted sense. If, however, we are to under-
stand these words to mean the conquest of power for a democratic revolu-
tion and not for a Socialist revolution, then what is the point in talking
not only about participation in a provisional revolutionary government
but also about the "conquest of power" in general. Obviously our "Con-
ferencers" were not very clear themselves as to what they should talk
* The full text of this resolution can be reconstructed by the reader from
the quotations given on pp. 400, 403, 407, 431 and 433 [see this volume
pp. 363,367-68, 372, 399 and 402— Ed.] of the present pamphlet. (Author's
note to the 1908 edition. — Ed.)
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 363
about: the democratic or the Socialist revolution. Those who have fol-
lowed the literature on this question know that it was Comrade Martynov,
in his notorious Two Dictatorships, who started this muddle: the new
Jtf&m-ites are very reluctant to recall the manner in which this question
was presented (before January 9) in that model of a khvostist work. Nev-
ertheless there can be no doubt that it exercised ideological influence
on the Conference.
But let us leave the title of the resolution. Its contents reveal mis*
takes incomparably more profound and serious. Here is the first part:
"A decisive victory of the revolution over tsarism may be marked
either by the establishment of a provisional government, which
will emerge from a victorious popular uprising, or by the revolu-
tionary initiative of one representative institution or another,
which, under direct revolutionary pressure of the people, decides
to set up a popular constituent assembly."
Thus, we are told that a decisive victory of the revolution over tsarism
may be marked either by a victorious uprising, or — by a decision of a
representative institution to set up a constituent assembly! What does
this mean? How are we to understand it? A decisive victory may be
marked by a "decision" to set up a constituent assembly?? And such a
"victory" is put side by side with the establishment of a provisional govern-
ment which will "emerge from a victorious popular uprising"!! The Con-
ference failed to note that a victorious popular uprising and the establishment
of a provisional government would signify the victory of the revolution
in actual fact, whereas a "decision" to set up a constituent assembly would
signify a victory of the revolution in words only.
The Conference of the Mensheviks, or new Iskra-ites, committed the
same error that the liberals, the Osrobozhdeutsi are constantly commit-
ting. The OsvobozhiUnisi prattle about a "constituent" assembly and
bashfully close their eyes to the fact that power and force remain in the
hands of the tsar. They forget that in order to "constitute" one must pos-
ses the power to do so. The Conference also forgot that it is still a far
cry from a "decision" adopted by representatives — no matter who they
are — to the fulfilment of that decision. The Conference further forgot that
so long as power remained in the hands of the tsar, all decisions passed by
any representatives whatsoever would remain empty and miserable prattle,
as was the case with the "decisions" of the Frankf art Parliament, famous in
the history of the German Revolution of 1848. In his Neue Rheinische Zei-
*W7M/,Marx, the representative of the revolutionary proletariat, castigated
the Frankfurt liberal Osvobozhdentsi ("Emancipationists") with merciless
sarcasm precisely because they uttered fine words, adopted all sorts of
democratic "decisions," "constituted" all kinds of liberties, while actually
they left power in the hands of the king and failed to organize an armed
struggle against the military forces at the disposal of the king. And while
364 V. I. LENIN
the Frankfurt Osvobozhdentsi were prattling — the king bided his time,
consolidated his military forces, and the counter-revolution, relying on
real force, utterly routed the democrats with all their fine "decisions."
The Conference put on a par with a decisive victory the very thing that
lacks the essential condition of victory. How was it possible for Social-
Democrats who recognize the republican program of our Party to commit
such an error? In order to understand this strange phenomenon we must
turn to the resolution of the Third Congress on the section which has
split away from the Party."* This resolution refers to the fact that vari-
ous tendencies "akin to Economism" have survived in our Party. Our
"Conferences" (it is not for nothing that they are under the ideological
guidance of Martynov) talk of the revolution in exactly the same way as
the Economists talked of the political struggle or the eight-hour day.
The Economists immediately gave currency to the "theory of stages":
1) the struggle for rights, 2) political agitation, 3) political struggle;
or, 1) a ten-hour day, 2) a nine-hour day, 3) an eight-hour day. The results
of this "tactics-as-a-process" are sufficiently well known to all. Now we
are invited to make sure in advance that we divide the revolution itself
properly into stages: 1) the tsar convenes a representative body; 2) this
representative body "decides" under pressure of the "people" to set up
a constituent assembly; 3) ... the Mensheviks have not yet agreed among
themselves as to the third stage; they have forgotten that the revolutionary
pressure of the people will encounter the counter-revolutionary pressure
of tsarism and that, therefore, either the "decision" will remain unful-
filled or the issue will be decided after all by the victory or the defeat of
the popular uprising. The resolution of the Conference is an exact repro-
duction of the reasoning of the Economists to the effect that a decisive
victory of the workers may be marked either by the realization of the eight-
hour day in a revolutionary way, or by the grant of a ten-hour day and
a "decision" to go over to a nine-hour day. . . . Exactly the same.
* We cite this resolution in full. "The Congress places on record that since
the time of the Party's fight against Economism, certain trends have survived
in the R.S.D.L.P. which, in various degrees and respects, are akin to Economism
and which betray a common tendency to belittle the importance of the element
of consciousness in the proletarian struggle, and to subordinate it to the element
of spontaneity. On questions of organization, the representatives of these tenden-
cies put forward, in theory, the principle of organifcation-as-a-process which is
out of harmony with methodical Party work, while in practice they systematically
deviate from Party discipline in very many cases, and in other cases preach to
the least enlightened section of the Party the idea of a wide application of the
elective principle, without taking into consideration the objective conditions
of Russian life, and so strive to undermine the only basis for Party ties that is
possible at the present time. In tactical questions these trends manifest themselves
In a tendency to narrow the scope of Party work, declaring their opposition to the
Party pursuing completely independent tactics with regard to the liberal-bourgeois
parties, denying that it is possible and desirable for our Party to assume the role
of organizer in the people's uprising and opposing the participation of the Party
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 36&
It may be objected perhaps that the authors of the resolution did not
mean to place the victory of an uprising on a par with the "decision"
of a representative institution convened by the tsar, that they only want-
ed to provide for the Party's tactics in either case. To this our answer would
be: 1) the text of the resolution plainly and unambiguously describes the
decision of a representative institution as "a decisive victory of the re*
volution over tsarism." Perhaps that is the result of careless wording,
perhaps it could be corrected after consulting the minutes, but, so long
as it is not corrected, the present wording can have only one meaning,
and this meaning is entirely in keeping with the Osvobozhdeniye line of
reasoning. 2) The Osvobozhdeniye line of reasoning, into which the au-
thors of the resolution have drifted, stands out in incomparably greater
relief in other literary productions of the new Is&ra-ites. For instance,
the organ of the Tiflis Committee, Social- Democrat (in the Georgian lan-
guage; praised by the Iskra in No. 100), in the article "The Zemsky Sobor
and Our Tactics, "goes so far as to say that the "tactics" "which make the
Zemsky Sobor the centre of our activities" (about the convocation of
which, we may add, nothing definite is known as yet!) "are more advan»
tageous for us" than the "tactics" of armed insurrection and the establish-
ment of a provisional revolutionary government. We shall refer to this
article again further on. 3) No objection can be made to a preliminary dis-
cussion of what tactics the Party should adopt in the event of the victory
of the revolution as well as in event of its defeat, in the event of a success-
ful uprising as well as in the event the uprising fails to develop into
a serious force. It is possible that the tsarist government may succeed
in convening a representative assembly for the purpose of coming to terms
with the liberal bourgeoisie; providing for that eventuality, the resolu-
tion of the Third Congress speaks plainly about "hypocritical policy,"
"pseudo-democracy," "a caricature of popular representation, something
like the so-called Zemsky Sobor.99* But the point is that this is not said
in a provisional democratic-revolutionary government under any conditions
whatsoever.
"The Congress instructs all Party members everywhere to conduct an energetic
ideological struggle against such partial deviations from the principles of revolu-
tionary Social-Democracy; at the same time it is of the opinion that persons who
share such views to a greater or lesser extent may belong to Party organizations
on the indispensable condition that they recognize the Party congresses and the
Party Rules and wholly submit to Party discipline." (Author's note to the 1908
edition. — Ed.)
* The following is the text of this resolution on the attitude towards the
tactics of the government on the eve of the revolution:
"Whereas for purposes of self-preservation the government during the present
revolutionary period, while intensifying the usual repressions directed mainly
against the class-conscious elements of the proletariat, at the same time 1) tries
by means of concessions and promises of reforms to corrupt the working class
politically and thereby to divert it from the revolutionary struggle; 2) for the same
purpose clothes its hypocritical policy of concessions in a pseudo-democratic
306 V. I. LENIN
in the resolution on a provisional revolutionary government, for it has
nothing to do with a provisional revolutionary government. This eventual-
ity defers the problem of the uprising and of the establishment of a pro-
visional revolutionary government; it modifies this problem, etc. The
point in question now is not that all kinds of combinations are possible,
that both victory and defeat are possible, that there may be direct or
circuitous,paths; the point is that it is impermissible for a Social-Demo-
crat to confuse the minds of the workers with regard to the genuinely
revolutionary path, that it is impermissible for him to take the cue from
the Osvobozhdeniye and describe as a decisive victory that which lacks
the main requisite for victory. It is possible that we may not even obtain
the eight-hour day at one stroke, but only after following a long and cir-
cuitous path; but what would you say of a man who calls such impotence,
such weakness of the proletariat as renders it incapable of counteracting
procrastination, delays, haggling, treachery and reaction, a victory for
the workers? It is possible that the Russian revolution will end in an
"abortive constitution," as was once stated in the Vperyod,* but can this
justify a Social-Democrat, who on the eve of a decisive struggle would
call this abortion a "decisive victory over tsarism"? If the worst comes to
the worst, it is possible that so far from getting a republic, even the consti-
cloak, beginning with invitations to the workers to elect their representatives
to commissions and conferences and ending with the establishment of a caricature
of popular representation, something like the so-called Zemsky Sobor; 3) organizes
the so-called Black-Hundreds and incites against the revolution all those elements
of the people in general who are reactionary, ignorant or blinded by racial or
religious hatred;
"The Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. resolves to call on all Party organi-
zations:
"a) while exposing the reactionary purpose of the government's concessions,
to emphasize in their propaganda and agitation the fact that, on the one handy
these concessions were granted under compulsion, and, on the other, that it is
absolmtely impossible for the autocracy to grant reforms satisfactory to the pro-
letariat;
"b) taking advantage of the election campaign, to explain to the workers
the real significance of the government's measures and to show the necessity for
the proletariat of the convocation by revolutionary means of a constituent assembly
based on universal and equal suffrage, direct elections and secret ballot;
"c) to organize the proletariat for the immediate realization, in a revolutionary
way, of the eight-hour working day and of the other immediate demands of the
working class;
**d) to organize armed resistance to the actions of the Black-Hundreds and
generally of all the reactionary elements led by the government." (Author's note
to the 1908 edition. — Ed.)
* The newspaper Vperyod, published in Geneva, began to appear in January
1905 as the organ of the Bolshevik section. of the Party. Eighteen issues appeared
from January to May. After May, by virtue of the decision of the Third Congress
of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, the Proletary was issued in place
of the Vperyod as the central organ of the R.S.D.L.P. (This Congress took place
in London in May; the Mensheviks did not appear, and organized their own 'in-
ference'' in Geneva.) (Author's note to the 1908 edition. — Ed.)
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 367
tutionwc get will be the mere ghost of a constitution, something "d ZaShi-
pov,"* but would it be pardonable for a Social-Democrat to obscure our
slogan calling for a republic?
Of course, the new Iskra-ites have not yet gone so far as to obscure
it. But, as is particularly clearly evident from their resolution, to such
an extent has the revolutionary spirit fled from them, to such an extent
has lifeless pedantry blinded them to the militant tasks of the moment
that, of all things, they forgot to mention a word about the republic in
their resolutions. It is incredible, but it is a fact. All the slogans of So-
cial-Democracy have been endorsed, repeated, explained and presented
in detail in the various resolutions of the Conference — even the election
of shop stewards and delegates by the workers has not been forgotten,,
but in a resolution on a provisional revolutionary government they sim-
ply did not find the occasion to mention the republic. To talk of the "vic-
tory" of the people's uprising, of the establishment of a provisional gov-
ernment, and not to indicate what relation these "steps" and acts have
to the achievement of a republic — means writing a resolution not for
the guidance of the proletarian struggle, but for the purpose of hobbling
along at the tail end of the proletarian movement.
To sum up: the first part of the resolution 1) gives no explanation what-
ever of the role of a provisional revolutionary government from the stand-
point of the struggle for a republic and of securing a genuinely popular
and genuinely constituent assembly; 2) simply confuses the proletariat
in its conceptions of democracy by placing on a par with a decisive yictory
of the revolution over tsarism a state of affairs in which the main requi-
site for a real victory is lacking.
4. THE ABOLITION OF THE MONARCHIST SYSTEM
AND A REPUBLIC
Let us pass on to the next section of the resolution:
". . . In either case such victory will inaugurate a new phase
in the revolutionary epoch.
"The task which the objective conditions of social development
spontaneously raise in this new phase is the final abolition of the
whole regime of social estates and the monarchy in the process
of mutual struggle among the elements of politically emanci-
pated bourgeois society for the satisfaction of their social
interests and for the direct acquisition of power.
* A Constitution ... "d la Shipov" — the appclation given to the political
program drawn up by the bourgeois liberal Shipov, who advanced the demand to
establish a representative body having a consultative character and deprived
of all legislative functions. — Ed.
368 V. I. LENIN
"Therefore, the provisional government that would undertake
to carry out the tasks of this revolution, which by its historical
nature is a bourgeois revolution, would, in regulating the mutual
struggle of the antagonistic classes of the emancipated nation, not
only have to push revolutionary development further ahead but
would also have to fight against those of its factors which threaten
the foundations of the capitalist system."
Let us examine this section which forms an independent part of the
resolution. The idea underlying the above-quoted arguments coincides
-with that stated in the third clause of the Congress resolution. But in
comparing these parts of the two resolutions, the following radical differ-
•cnce at once becomes apparent. The Congress resolution describes the
•social and economic basis of the revolution in a few words and, concen-
trating its entire attention on the sharply defined struggle of classes for
definite gains, places the militant tasks of the proletariat in the forefront.
The resolution of the Conference describes the social and economic basis
of the revolution in a long-winded, nebulous and confused manner, very
vaguely mentions the struggle for definite gains, and leaves the militant
tasks of the proletariat altogether in the shade. The resolution of the Con-
ference speaks of the abolition of the old order in the process of mutual
•struggle among the various elements of society. The Congress resolu-
tion states that we, the party of the proletariat, must effect this aboli-
tion, that only the establishment of a democratic republic signifies the
«eal abolition of the old order, that we must achieve such a re-
public, that we shall fight for it and for complete liberty, not only
:against the autocracy, but also against the bourgeoisie, if it attempts
i(as it assuredly will) to wrest our gains from us. The Congress resolution
•calls on a definite class to wage a struggle for a precisely defined immedi-
ate aim. The resolution of the Conference discourses on the mutual struggle
of various forces. One resolution expresses the psychology of active strug-
gle, the other expresses that of passive contemplation; one resounds with
the call for live action, the other is steeped in lifeless pedantry. Both re-
solutions state that the present revolution is only our first step, which
•will be followed by another; but from this, one resolution draws the con-
'dusion that we must for that reason get over this step as quickly as
^possible, leave it behind as quickly as possible, achieve a republic, mer-
cilessly crush the counter-revolution and prepare the ground for the
second step. The other resolution, however, oozes, so to speak, with ver-
bose descriptions of this first step and (excuse the vulgar expression)
*chews the cud over it. The resolution of the Congress takes the old and
yet eternally new ideas of Marxism (about the bourgeois nature of a
•democratic revolution) as a preface or first premise from which it draws
conclusions as to the progressive tasks of the most progressive class, which
is fighting both for the democratic and for the Socialist revolution. The
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 369
resolution of the Conference does not get beyond the preface, chewing
it over and over again and trying to be clever about it.
This is the very distinction which has long been dividing the Russian
Marxists into two wings: the pedantic and the militant wings in the old
days of "legal Marxism," and the economic and political wings in the
period of the newly arising mass movement. From the correct premise
of Marxism concerning the deep economic roots of the class struggle in
general and of the political struggle in particular, the Economists drew
the singular conclusion that we must turn our backs on the political strug-
gle and retard its development, narrow its scope, and derogate from its
aims. The political wing, on the contrary, drew a different conclusion
from these same premises, namely, that the deeper the roots of our strug-
gle at the present time, the more widely, the more boldly, and the more
resolutely we must wage this struggle and the greater the initiative we
must show in it. What we are now dealing with is the same old contro-
versy, only under different circumstances and in a modified form. From
the premises that a democratic revolution is far from being a Socialist
one, that the property less are far from being the only ones to whom it is
"of interest," that it is deeply rooted in the inexorable needs and require-
ments of the whole of bourgeois society — from these premises we draw
the conclusion that the most progressive class must formulate its demo-
cratic aims all the more boldly, express them all the more sharply and
fully, advance the direct slogan calling for a republic, popularize the
idea of the necessity of a provisional revolutionary government and of
the necessity of ruthlessly crushing counter-revolution. Our opponents,
the new Js&ra-ites, however, deduce from the very same premises that
the democratic conclusions should not be expressed fully, that the slogan
calling for a republic may be omitted from the practical slogans, that we
can refrain from popularizing the idea of the necessity of a provisional
revolutionary government, that a mere decision to convene a constit-
uent assembly can be termed a decisive victory, that we need not advance
the task of combating counter-revolution as our active aim but that we
may submerge it instead in a nebulous (and, as we shall presently
see, wrongly formulated) reference to a "process of mutual struggle."
This is not the language of political leaders, but of fossilized bureaucrats.
And the more closely one examines the various formulae in the new
Iskra-itc resolution, the clearer its aforementioned basic features become.
It speaks, for instance, of a "process of mutual struggle among the ele-
ments of politically emancipated bourgeois society." Bearing in mind
the subject with which this resolution deals (a provisional revolutionary
government) one asks in astonishment: if you are referring to the process
of mutual struggle, how can you keep silent about the elements which
are enslaving bourgeois society politically? Do the "Conferencers" really
imagine that because they have assumed that the revolution will be victo-
rious these elements have already disappeared? Such an idea would be
24— GS5
870 V. I. LENIN
absurd in general, and in particular would be an expression of the greatest
political naivet^ and political short-sightedness. After the victory of the
revolution over the counter-revolution, the latter will not disappear, on
the contrary, it will inevitably start a new and even more desperate strug-
gle. Since the purpose of our resolution is to analyse the tasks that will
confront us when the revolution is victorious, it is incumbent upon us
to devote great attention to the tasks of repelling counter-revolutionary
attacks ^(as is done in the resolution of the Congress), and not to submerge
these immediate, urgent and vital political tasks of a militant party in
general discussions on what will happen after the present revolutionary
period, what will happen when a "politically emancipated society" will
already be in existence. Just as the Economists by repeating the truism
that politics are subordinated to economics, covered up their failure to
understand current political tasks, so the new /s&ra-ites, by repeating
the truism that struggles will take place in a politically emancipated
society, cover up their failure to understand the urgent revolutionary tasks
of the political emancipation of this society.
Take the expression "the final abolition of the whole regime of social
estates and the monarchy." In plain language, the final abolition of the
monarchist system means the establishment of a democratic republic. But
our good Martynov and his admirers think that this expression is far too
simple and clear. They are absolutely bent on rendering it "more pro-
found" and saying it more "cleverly." As a result, we get ridiculous and
vain efforts to appear profound, on the one hand, and, on the other hand,
we get a description instead of a slogan, a sort of melancholy looking
backward instead of a stirring appeal to march forward. We get the impres-
sion, not of virile people eager to fight for a republic here and now, but
of fossilized mummies who sub specie aeternitatis* consider the question
from the standpoint of plusquamperfectum.**
Let us proceed further:
". . . the provisional government . . . would undertake to carry out
the tasks of this . . . bourgeois revolution. . . ." Here we see at once the
result of the fact that our "Conferencers" have overlooked a concrete
question which confronts the political leaders of the proletariat. The con-
crete question of a provisional revolutionary government faded from their
field of vision before the question of the future series of governments
which will carry out the aims of the bourgeois revolution in general.
If you want to consider the question "from a historical angle," the example
of any European country will show you that it was a series of governments,
not by any means "provisional," that carried out the historical aims of
the bourgeois revolution, that even the governments which defeated the
revolution were nonetheless forced to carry out the historical aims of that
* From the perspective of eternity. — Ed.
** Pluperfect, the remote past. — Ed.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 371
defeated revolution. But what is called a "provisional revolutionary
government" is something altogether different from what you are refer-
ring to: that is the name given to the government of a revolutionary epoch,
which directly replaces the overthrown government and which rests on the
uprising of the people, and not on representative institutions coming
from the people. A provisional revolutionary government is the organ of
struggle for the immediate victory of the revolution, for the immediate
repulse of counter-revolutionary attempts, and not by any means an organ
for carrying out the historical aims of the bourgeois revolution in general.
We may, gentlemen, leave it to the future historians of the future
Russkaya titarina to determine exactly what aims of the bourgeois
revolution you and we, or this or that government, shall have achieved —
there will be time enough to do that in thirty years; now we must put for-
ward slogans and give practical directives for the struggle for a republic
and for the proletariat's most active participation in this struggle.
It is for the reasons stated that the last propositions in the section of
the resolution which we have quoted above are also unsatisfactory. The
expression that the provisional government would have to "regulate"
the mutual struggle among the antagonistic classes is exceedingly inept,
or at any rate awkwardly put; Marxists should not use such liberal,
Osvobozhdeniye formulations, which lead one to believe that it is possible
to have governments which do not serve as organs of the class struggle
but as its "regulators". . . . The government would "not only have to
push revolutionary development further ahead but would also have to
fight against those of its factors which threaten the foundations of the
capitalist system." But it is the proletariat, the very same in whose name
the resolution is speaking, that constitutes this "factor"! Instead of
indicating just how the proletariat should "push revolutionary devel-
opment further ahead" at the present time (push it further than the consti-
tutionalist bourgeois would care to go), instead of advice to prepare def-
inite ways and means of combating the bourgeoisie when the latter turns
against the conquests of the revolution, we are offered a general descrip-
tion of a process, which does not say a word about the concrete aims of our
activity. The new Jsfcra-ite method of exposition reminds one of Marx's
opinion (in his famous "theses" on Feuerbach) of the old materialism,
which was alien to the ideas of dialectics. Marx said that the philosophers
only interpreted the world in various ways, whereas the point is to change
this world. Likewise, the new Iskra-ites can give a tolerable description
and explanation of the process of struggle which is taking place before their
eyes, but they are altogether incapable of giving a correct slogan for this
struggle. They march with a will but lead badly, and they depreciate
the materialist conception of history by ignoring the active, leading and
guiding part in history which can and must be played by parties that un-
derstand the material prerequisites of a revolution and that have placed
themselves at the head of the progressive classes.
24*
372 V. I. LENIN
5. HOW SHOULD "THE REVOLUTION BE PUSHED AHEAD"?
Let us quote the next section of the resolution:
"Under such conditions, Social-Democracy must strive to main-
tain during the whole course of the revolution, a position which
would best of all secure for it the possibility of pushing the revolu-
tion ahead, which would not tie the hands of Social-Democracy
in its struggle against the inconsistent and self-seeking policy
of the bourgeois parties and which \\ould preserve it from being
merged in bourgeois democracy.
"Therefore, Social-Democracy must not set itself the aim
of seizing power or sharing power in the provisional govern-
ment, but must remain the party of extreme revolutionary
opposition."
The advice to occupy a position which best secures the possibility of
pushing the revolution ahead is very much to our liking. We only wish
that in addition to this good advice they had given a direct indication
as to how Social-Democracy should push the revolution further ahead right
now, in the present political situation, in a period of rumours, conjectures,
talk and schemes about the convocation of popular representatives. Can
the revolution be pushed further ahead now by one who fails to under-
stand the danger of the Osvobozhdeniye theory of "compromise" between
the people and the tsar, who calls a mere "decision" to convene a consti-
tuent assembly a victory, who does not set himself the task of carrying
on active propaganda for the idea of the necessity of a provisional revolu-
tionary government, or who leaves in the shade the slogan of a democrat-
ic republic? Such people actually push the revolution backward, because,
as far as practical politics are concerned, they have not gone beyond the
position taken by the Oxvobozhdenfsi. What is the use of their recogni-
tion of a program which demands that the autocracy be replaced by a re-
public, when in a resolution on tactics, in a resolution that defines the
present and immediate tasks of the Party in the period of revolution they
omit the slogan calling for a struggle for a republic? Actually it is the
position of the Osvobozhdenlsi, the position of the constitutionalist bour-
geoisie, that is now characterized by the fact that the decision to convene
a popular constituent assembly is considered a decisive victory while
a prudent silence is maintained on the subject of a provisional revolution-
ary government and a republic! In order to push the revolution fur-
ther ahead, i.e., beyond the bounds to which the monarchist bourgeoisie
is pushing it, it is necessary actively to advance, emphasize and push to
the forefront such slogans as would preclude the "inconsistencies" of the
bourgeois democrats. At the present time there are only two such slogans:
1) for a provisional revolutionary government, and 2) for a republic,
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION H73
since the slogan calling for a popular constituent assembly has been
accepted by the monarchist bourgeoisie (see the program of the Owobozh-
deniye League) and accepted for the very purpose of juggling away the
revolution, of preventing the complete victory of the revolution, and of
enabling the big bourgeoisie to strike a huckster's bargain with tsarism.
And now we see that of the two slogans which alone are capable of push-
ing the revolution ahead, the Conference completely forgot the slogan call-
ing for a republic, and plainly put the slogan calling for a provisional
revolutionary government on a par with the Osrobozhdeniye slogan call-
ing for a popular constituent assembly, terming both the one and the
other "a decisive victory of the revolution"!!
Yes, such is the undoubted fact, which, we are sure, will serve as a
landmark for the future historian of the Russian Social-Democratic move-
ment. The Conference of Social-Democrats held in May 1905 passed a
resolution which contains fine words about the necessity of pushing ahead
the democratic revolution, but which actually pushes it back, which
actually does not go beyond the democratic slogans of the monarchist
bourgeoisie.
The new Jsfcra-ites like to accuse us of ignoring the danger of the prole-
tariat merging in the democratic bourgeoisie. We should like to see the
person who would undertake to prove this charge on the basis of the text
of the resolutions passed by the Third Congress of the Russian Social-
Democratic Labour Party. Our reply to our opponents is: A Social-
Democratic Party, operating in a bourgeois society, cannot take part in
politics without marching, in one instance or another, side by side with
the democratic bourgeoisie. The difference between us in this respect is
that we march side by side with the revolutionary and republican bourgeoi-
sie, without merging with it, whereas you march side by side with the
liberal and monarchist bourgeoisie, also without merging with it. That is
how matters stand.
The tactical slogans you have formulated in the name of the Confer-
ence coincide with the slogans of the "Constitutional-Democratic" Party,
i.e., the party of the monarchist bourgeoisie; moreover, you did not even no-
tice or realize this coincidence, thus actually dragging in the »w/»v of the
OsvobozhdentsL
The tactical slogans we have formulated in the name of the Third Con-
gress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party coincide with the
slogans of the democratic-revolutionary and republican bourgeoisie. This
bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie in Russia have not yet combined into
a big people's party.*
* The "Socialist-Revolutionaries" are more in the nature of a terrorist group
of intellectuals than the embryo of such a party, although objectively the activ-
ities of that group reduce themselves to this very matter of achieving the aims
of the revolutionary and republican bourgeoisie.
374 V. I. LENIN
However, only one utterly ignorant of what is now taking place in
Russia can doubt the existence of the elements of such a party. We pro-
pose to lead (in the event that the course of the great Russian revolution
is successful) not only the proletariat, organized by the Social-Democratic
Party, but also this petty bourgeoisie, which is capable of marching side
by side with us.
In its resolution the Conference unconsciously descends to the level
of the liberal and monarchist bourgeoisie. The Party Congress in its reso-
lution consciously raises to its own level those elements of the revolution-
ary democracy who are capable of waging a struggle, and not of acting
as brokers.
Such elements are to be found mostly among the peasants. In classifying
the big social groups according to their political tendencies we can, without
danger of serious error, identify revolutionary and republican democracy
with the mass of the peasants — of course, in the same way and with the
same reservations and implied conditions as we can identify the work-
ing class with Social-Democracy. In other words, we may formulate our
conclusions in the following way as well: in a revolutionary period the
Conference in its national* political slogans unconsciously descends to the
level of the mass of the landlords. The Party Congress in its national po-
litical slogans raises the peasant masses to the revolutionary level. We
challenge anyone who may accuse us of evincing a penchant for paradoxes
because of this conclusion to refute the proposition that if we are not strong
enough to bring the revolution to a successful conclusion, if the revolution
terminates in a "decisive victory" in the sense understood by the Osvo-
bozhdenlsi, i.e., exclusively in the form of a representative assembly con-
vened by the tsar, which could be called a constituent assembly only
in derision — that this will be a revolution in which the landlord and big
bourgeois element will preponderate. On the other hand, if we are destined
to live through a really great revolution, if history prevents a "miscar-
riage," this time, if we are strong enough to carry the revolution to the
end, to a decisive victory, not in the Osvobozfideniye or the new Iskra
sense of the word, then it will be a revolution in which the peasant and
proletarian element will preponderate.
Some people may, perhaps, interpret the fact that we admit such pre-
ponderance as a renunciation of the view that the impending revolution
will be bourgeois in character. This is quite possible, considering how this
concept is misused in the Iskra. For this reason it will not be at all super-
fluous to dwell on this question.
* We are not referring here to the special peasant slogans which were dealt
with in separate resolutions.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOIJJTION 376
6. FROM WHAT DIRECTION IS THE PROLETARIAT
THREATENED WITH THE DANGER OF HAVING ITS HANDS
TIED IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE INCONSISTENT
BOURGEOISIE?
Marxists are absolutely convinced of the bourgeois character of the
Russian revolution. What does this mean? It means that the democratic
changes in the political system and the social and economic changes, which
have Ifecome indispensable for Russia, do not in themselves imply the
undermining of capitalism, the undermining of bourgeois domination;
on the contrary, they will, for the first time, really clear the ground for
a widespread and rapid European, and not Asiatic, development of
capitalism; they will, for the first time, mak^JSj85C4bJ^or the bourgeoi-
sie to rule as a class. The Social is t-RevoL^^S^VQjftc?rll^sP tiiis idea,
for they are ignorant of the rudiments^^MS^J^^ of com-
modity and capitalist production; th^y fgi^to see that ev^tMk complete
success of a peasant uprising, even^eX^isttib^j^|^^ of the
land for the benefit of the pcasants/jB^^i^aecoma^ce.with^^^f desires
("Black Redistribution" or somethittaS^lthaESki^^wn1! not W
talism at all, but will, on the contw^ givq^^ir^ctus t^ra
ment and hasten the breaking up of^wrfb^santry itself im^ctfsses. The
failure to grasp this truth makes thS^SodW^-Revpj4nwa^res uncon-
scious ideologists of the petty bourgeoiH^fcslsl^nce.oqh™rtruth is ex-
tremely important for Social-Democrats, no^^aalj^Bfiagi<^cally but from
the standpoint of practical politics, for from iu^bllows the necessity for
the complete class independence of the party of the proletariat in the
present "general democratic" movement.
But it does not at all follow from this that a democratic revolution
(bourgeois in its social and economic substance) is not of enormous in-
terest for the proletariat. It does not at all follow from this that the demo-
cratic revolution cannot take place in a form advantageous mainly to
the big capitalist, the financial magnate and the "enlightened" land-
lord, as well as in a form advantageous to the peasant and to the
worker.
The new JsJkra-ites thoroughly misunderstand the meaning and signifi-
cance of the concept bourgeois revolution. Their arguments constantly
reveal the underlying idea that a bourgeois revolution is a revolution
which can be of benefit only to the bourgeoisie. And yet nothing is more
erroneous than such an idea. A bourgeois revolution is a revolution which
does not go beyond the limits of the bourgeois, i.e., capitalist, social
and economic system, A bourgeois revolution expresses the needs of
capitalist development, and far from destroying the foundations of cap-
talism, it does the opposite, it broadens and strengthens them. This revolu-
tion therefore expresses the interests hot only of the working class, but of
376 V. i. LENIN
the entire bourgeoisie as well. Since the domination of the bourgeoisie
over the working class is inevitable under capitalism, it is quite correct
to say that a bourgeois revolution expresses the interests not so much of the
proletariat as of the bourgeoisie. But it is entirely absurd to think that
a bourgeois revolution does not express the interests of the proletariat
altogether. This absurd idea boils down either to the hoary Narodnik the-
ory that a bourgeois revolution runs counter to the interests of the pro-
letariat^ and that therefore we have no need for bourgeois political liberty;
or to anarchism, which rejects all participation of the proletariat in bour-
geois politics, in a bourgeois revolution and in bourgeois parliamentarism.
From the standpoint of theory, this idea disregards the elementary proposi-
tions of Marxism concerning the inevitability of capitalist development
where commodity production exists. Marxism teaches that a society which
is based on commodity production, and which has commercial intercourse
with civilized capitalist nations, itself inevitably takes the road of capital-
ism at a certain stage of its development. Marxism has irrevocably
broken with the ravings of the Narodniks and the anarchists to the effect
that Russia, for instance, can avoid capitalist development, jump out
of capitalism, or skip over it, along some path other than the path of the
class struggle on the basis and within the framework of this same capi-
talism.
All these principles of Marxism have been proved and explained over
and over again in minute detail in general and with regard to Russia
in particular. And from these principles it follows that the idea of seeking
salvation for the working class in anything save the further development
of capitalism is reactionary. In countries like Russia, the working class
suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development
of capitalism. The working class is therefore decidedly interested in the
broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism. The removal
of all the remnants of the old order which are hampering the broad, free
and rapid development of capitalism is of decided advantage to the work-
ing class. The bourgeois revolution is precisely a revolution which most
resolutely sweeps away the survivals of the past, the remnants of serfdom
(which include not only autocracy but monarchy as well) and which most
fully guarantees the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capi-
talism.
That is why a bourgeois revolution is in the highest degree advantageous to
the proletariat. A bourgeois revolution is absolutely necessary in the interests
of the proletariat. The more complete, determined and cons is tent the bour-
geois revolution, the more assured will be the proletarian struggle against
the bourgeoisie for Socialism. Such a conclusion will appear new, or strange
and paradoxical only to those who are ignorant of the rudiments of scien-
tific Socialism. And from this conclusion, among other things, follows
the thesis that, in a certain sense, a bourgeois revolution is more advanta-
geous to the proletariat than to the bourgeoisie. This thesis is unquestion-
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 3? 7
ably correct in the following sense: it is to the advantage of the bourgeoi-
sie to rely on certain remnants of the past as against the proletariat, for
instance, on the monarchy, the standing army, etc. It is to the advantage
of the bourgeoisie if the bourgeois revolution does not too resolutely
sweep away all the remnants of the past, but leaves some of them, t.e.,
if this revolution is not fully consistent, if ; t is not complete and if it is
not determined and relentless. Social-Democrats often express this idea
somewhat differently by stating that the bourgeoisie betrays its own self,
that the bourgeoisie betrays the cause of liberty, that the bourgeoisie
is incapable of being consistently democratic. It is of greater advantage
to the bourgeoisie if the necessary changes in the direction of bourgeois
democracy take place more slowly, more gradually, more cautiously,
less resolutely, by means of reforms and not by means of revolution; if
these changes spare the "venerable" institutions of serfdom (such as the
monarchy) as much as possible; if these changes develop as little as
possible the independent revolutionary activity, initiative and energy
of the common people, i.e., the peasantry and especially the work-
ers, for otherwise it will be easier for the workers, as the French say, "to
hitch the rifle from one shoulder to the other," i.e., to turn against the
bourgeoisie the guns which the bourgeois revolution will place in
their hands, the liberty which the revolution will bring, the democratic
institutions which will spring up on the ground that is cleared of serf-
dom.
On the other hand, it is more advantageous for the working class it
the necessary changes in the direction of bourgeois democracy take
place by way of revolution and not by way of reform; for the way
of reform is the way of delay, of procrastination, of the painfully slow
decomposition of the putrid parts of the national organism. It is the pro-
letariat and the peasantry that suffer first of all and most of all from this
putrefaction. The revolutionary way is the way of quick amputation,
which is the least painful to the proletariat, the way of the direct remov-
al of the decomposing parts, the way of fewest concessions to and least
consideration for the monarchy and the disgusting, vile, rotten and con-
taminating institutions which go with it.
So it is not only because of the censorship, not only for fear of
the authorities that our bourgeois- liberal press deplores the pos-
sibility of a revolutionary way, is afraid of revolution, tries to fright-
en the tsar with the bogey of revolution, is anxious to avoid revolution,
grovels and toadies for the sake of miserable reforms as a basis for a reform-
ist way. This standpoint is shared not only by the Russkiye Vyedomosti,
Syn Otechestva, Nasha Zhizn and Nashi Dni,* but also by the illegal,
* Ruaakiye Vyedomosti (Russian Journal), Syn Otechestva (Son of the Fath-
erland), Nasha Zhizn (Our Life) and Nashi Dni (Our Days) — newspapers pub-
lished by the bourgeois liberal party. —Ed.
378 V. I. LENIN
uncensored Osvobozhdeniye. The very position the bourgeoisie occupies
as a class in capitalist society inevitably causes it to be inconsistent in
the democratic revolution. The very position the proletariat occupies as
a class compels it to be consistently democratic. Thfe bourgeoisie looks back-
ward, fearing democratic progress, which threatens 'to strengthen the prole-
tariat. The proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains, but with the help
of democracy it has the whole world to gain. That is why the more consis-
tent the Bourgeois revolution is in its democratic changes, the less it will
limit itself to what is of advantage exclusively to the bourgeoisie. The
more consistent the bourgeois revolution is, the greater the guarantees
of the benefits that the proletariat and the peasantry will derive from the
democratic revolution.
Marxism teaches the proletarian not to keep aloof from the bourgeois
revolution, not to be indifferent to it, not to allow the leadership of the
revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, to
take a most energetic part in it, to fight most resolutely for consistent
proletarian democracy, for carrying the revolution to its conclusion. We
cannot jump out of the bourgeois -democratic confines of the Russian re-
volution, but we can vastly extend its boundaries, and within those bound-
aries we can and must fight for the interests of the proletariat, for its
immediate needs and for the conditions that will make it possible to
prepare its forces for the complete victory that is to come. There are
different kinds of bourgeois democrats. The Monarchist-Zemstvo-ist, who
favours an upper chamber, and who "asks" for universal suffrage while
secretly, sub rosa, striking a bargain with tsarism for a curtailed con-
stitution, is also a bourgeois -democrat. And the peasant who is fighting,
arms in hand, against the landlords and the government officials and with
a "naive republicanism" proposes to "kick out the tsar"* is also a bour-
geois-democrat. There are bourgeois-democratic regimes like the one in
Germany and also like the one in England, like the one in Austria and
also like the ones in America or Switzerland. He would be a fine Marxist
indeed, who in a period of democratic revolution failed to see the differ*
ence between the degrees of democracy, the difference in the natures
of its various forms and confined himself to "smart" sophisms to the
effect that, after all, this is "a bourgeois revolution" and the fruits of a
"bourgeois revolution."
Our new Jafcra-ites are wiseacres of just this sort, who take pride in
their short-sightedness. They confine themselves to disquisitions on the
bourgeois nature of the revolution just when and where it is necessary
to be able to draw a distinction between republican-revolutionary and
monarchist-liberal bourgeois democrats, to say nothing of the distinc-
tion between inconsistent bourgeois democratism and consistent prole-
tarian democratism. They are satisfied — as if they had really become
* See the Osvobozhdeniye, No. 71, page 337, footnote 2.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 379
like the "man in the muffler"* — to converse dolefully about a "process
of mutual struggle of antagonistic classes," when the question is one of
giving democratic leadership in the present revolution, of laying stress on
progressive democratic slogans as distinguished from the treacherous slo-
gans of Mr. Struve and 'Co., of bluntly and straightforwardly stating the
immediate aims of the really revolutionary struggle of the proletariat
and the peasantry, as distinguished from the liberal haggling of the land-
lords and manufacturers. At the present time the substance of the ques-
tion, which you, gentlemen, have missed, is whether our revolution will
result in a real, great victory, or merely in a wretched deal, whether it
will go so far as the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the pro-
letariat and the peasantry, or whether it will "peter out" in a liberal
constitution a la Shipov.
At first sight it might appear that in raising the question we are de-
viating entirely from our subject. But it is only at first sight that this
may appear to be so. As a matter of fact, it is precisely this question
that is at the root of the difference in principle which has already become
clearly marked between the Social-Democratic tactics of the Third Con-
gress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and the tactics
initiated by the Conference of the new Iskra-itcs. The latter have already
taken not two but three steps back, resurrecting the mistakes of Econo-
mism in solving problems that are incomparably more complex, more
important and more vital to the workers' party, viz.y questions of its
tactics in time of revolution. That is why we must analyse the question
we have raised with all due attention.
The section of the new /sfcra-ite resolution which we have quoted above
points out the danger of Social -Democracy tying its hands in the strug-
gle against the inconsistent policy of the bourgeoisie, the danger of its
becoming merged in bourgeois democracy. The idea of this danger runs
like a thread through all the literature typical of the new Iskra, it is the
real crux of the principle involved in our Party split (ever since the time
the elements of squabbling in this split were wholly eclipsed by the elements
of a turn towards Economism). And without any equivocation we admit
that this danger really exists, that just at the present time, at the height
of the Russian revolution, this danger has become particularly serious*
The pressing and extremely responsible duty of finding out from which
side this danger actually threatens devolves on all of us theoreticians or — as
I should prefer to say of myself — publicists of Social-Democracy. For the
source of our disagreement is not a dispute as to whether such a danger
exists, but the dispute as to whether it is caused by the so-called khvost-
ism of the "Minority" or the so-called revolutionism of the "Majority."
* The "man in themuffler" — a narrow-minded, hide-bound conservative who
stubbornly persists in shutting his eyes to the actual conditions of life. A character
depicted in a story under the same title by A. Chekhov. — Ed.
380 V. I. LENIN
To obviate all misinterpretations and misunderstandings, let us first
of all note that the danger to which we are referring lies not in the sub-
jective, but in the objective aspect of the matter, not in the formal po-
sition which Social-Democracy will take in the struggle, but in the mate-
rial outcome of the entire present revolutionary struggle. The question
is not whether this or that Social-Democratic group will want to merge
in bourgeois-democracy or whether they are conscious of the fact that
they are 'about to be merged. Nobody suggests that. We do not suspect
any Social-Democrat of harbouring such a desire, and this is not at all
a question of desires. Nor is it a question of whether this or that Social-
Democratic group will preserve its formal identity, its diversity from
and independence of bourgeois-democracy throughout the course of the
revolution. They may not only proclaim such "independence" but even
retain it formally, and yet it may turn out that their hands will nonethe-
less be tied in the struggle against the inconsistency of the bourgeoisie.
The final political result of the revolution may be that, in spite of the for-
mal "independence" of Social-Democracy, in spite of its complete organ-
izational independence as a separate party, it will in fact no longer be
independent, it will not be able to put the imprint of its proletarian in-
dependence on the course of events, will prove so weak that, on the whole
and in the last analysis, its "merging" in bourgeois-democracy will none-
theless be a historical fact.
That is what constitutes the real danger. Now let us see where the
threat comes from: from the fact that Social-Democracy as represented
by the new Iskra is deviating to the Right — as we believe; or from the
fact that Social-Democracy as represented by the "Majority," the Vpe-
ryod, etc., is deviating to the Left — as the new Jsfcra-ites believe.
The answer to this question, as we have pointed out, depends on the
objective combination of the actions of the various social forces. Our
Marxian analysis of Russian life has given us a theoretical insight into
the nature of those forces; now their nature is being revealed in practice
by the open action of groups and classes in the course of the revolution.
Thus, the entire theoretical analysis made by the Marxists long before
the period we are now passing through, as well as all the practical obser-
vations of the development of revolutionary events, shows that from the
standpoint of objective conditions there are two possible alternatives
for the course and outcome of the revolution in Russia. A change in the
economic and political system in Russia along bourgeois -democratic
lines is inevitable and unavoidable. There is no power on earth that can
prevent such a change. But the combined actions of the existing forces
which are effecting that change may result in one of two alternatives,
may bring about one of two alternative forms of that change. Either
1) the result will be a "decisive victory of the revolution over tsarism,"
or 2) the forces will be inadequate for a decisive victory and the matter
will end in a deal between tsarism and the most "inconsistent" and
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 381
most "self-seeking" elements of the bourgeoisie. All the infinite variety
of detail and combinations, which no one is able to foresee, reduce them-
selves— in general and on the whole — to either the one or the other of
these two outcomes.
Let us now consider these outcomes, first, from the standpoint of their
social significance and, secondly, from the standpoint of the position
of Social-Democracy (its "merging;" or "having its hands tied") in one
or the other case.
What is a "decisive victory of the revolution over tsarism"? We have
already seen that in using this expression the new /#fcra-ites do not grasp
even its immediate political significance. Still less do they seem to un-
derstand the class essence of this concept. Surely we Marxists must in
no way allow ourselves to be deluded by words, such as "revolution" or
"the great Russian revolution," as do many revolutionary democrats
(of the type of Gapon). We must be perfectly clear in our own minds as
to what real social forces are opposed to "tsarism" (which is a real force,
perfectly intelligible to all) and are capable of gaining a "decisive victory"
over it. Such a force cannot be the big bourgeoisie, the landlords, the man-
ufacturers, the kind of "society" which follows the lead of the Osvo-
bozhde >/#/. We see that these do not even want a decisive victory. We
know that owing to their class position they are incapable of waging a
decisive struggle against tsarism; they are too greatly handicapped by
the shackles of private property, capital and land to enter into a decisive
struggle. They need tsarism with its bureaucratic, police and military
forces against the proletariat and the peasantry far too much for them
to be able to strive for its destruction. No, the only force capable of gain-
ing "a decisive victory over tsarism," is the peoph, i.e., the proletariat
and the peasantry, if we take the main, big forces and distribute the rural
and urban petty bourgeoisie (also part of "the people") between the
two. "A decisive victory of the revolution over tsarism" is the revolution-
ary-democratic dictatorship of the prole.tariat and the peasantry. Our new
Iskra-itcs cannot escape from this conclusion, which Vperyod pointed out
long ago. There is no one else who is capable of gaining a decisive victory
over tsarism.
And such a victory will be precisely a dictatorship, i.e., it must inev-
itably rely on military force, on the arming of the masses, on an upris-
ing, and not on institutions of one kind or another, established in a "law-
ful" or "peaceful" way. It can be only a dictatorship, for the realization
of the changes which are urgently and absolutely indispensable for the
proletariat and the peasantry will call forth the desperate resistance of
the landlords, of the big bourgeoisie and of tsarism. Without a dictator-
ship it is impossible to break down that resistance and to repel the coun-
ter-revolutionary attempts. But of course it will be a democratic, not
a Socialist dictatorship. It will not be able (without a series of inter-
mediary stages of revolutionary development) to affect the foundations
382 V. I. LENIN
of capitalism. At best it may bring about a radical redistribution of
landed property in favour of the peasantry, establish consistent and full
democracy including the formation of a republic, eradicate all the op-
pressive features of Asiatic bondage, not only in village but also in fac-
tory life, lay the foundation for a thorough improvement in the position
of the workers and for a rise in their standard of living, and — last but
not least* — carry the revolutionary conflagration into Europe. Such a
victory will by no means as yet transform our bourgeois revolution into
a Socialist revolution; the democratic revolution will not directly over-
step the bounds of bourgeois social and economic relationships; neverthe-
less, the significance of such a victory for the future development of Rus-
sia and of the whole world will be immense. Nothing will raise the revo-
lutionary energy of the world proletariat so much, nothing will shorten
the path leading to its complete victory to such an extent, as this deci-
sive victory of the revolution that has now started in Russia.
How probable such a victory is is another question. We are not in
the least inclined to be unreasonably optimistic on that score, we do not
for a moment forget the immense difficulties of this task, but since we
are out to fight we must desire victory and be able to point out the right
road to it. Tendencies capable of leading to such a victory undoubtedly
exist. True, our, Social-Democratic, influence on the masses of the pro-
letariat is as yet exceedingly inadequate; the revolutionary influence on
the mass of the peasantry is altogether insignificant; the proletariat, and
especially the peasantry, are still frightfully scattered, backward and
ignorant. But revolution consolidates and enlightens rapidly. Every step
in the development of the revolution rouses the masses and attracts them
with irresistible force to the side of the revolutionary program, as the
only program that fully and consistently expresses their real and vital
interests.
According to a law of mechanics, every action produces an equal
reaction. In history also the destructive force of a revolution is to a con-
siderable extent dependent on how strong and protracted was the sup-
pression of the striving for liberty, and how profound is the contradiction
between the antediluvian "superstructure" and the living forces of the
present epoch. The international political situation, too, is in many re-
spects shaping itself in a way most advantageous for the Russian revolu-
tion. The uprising of the workers and peasants has already started; it
is sporadic, spontaneous, weak, but it unquestionably and undoubtedly
proves the existence of forces capable of waging a decisive struggle and
marching towards a decisive victory.
If these forces prove inadequate, tsarism will have time to conclude
the deal which is already in preparation by Messieurs the Bulygins on the
one side, and Messieurs the Struves, on the other. Then the whole thing
"Last but not least" in English in the Russian text. — Ed.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 883
will end in a curtailed constitution, or, if the worst comes to the worst,
even in a travesty of a constitution. This will also be a "bourgeois revo-
lution," but it will be an abortive, miscarried, half-baked revolution.
Social-Democracy entertains no illusions on that score, it knows the treach-
erous nature of the bourgeoisie, it will not lose heart or abandon its
persistent, patient, sustained work of educating the proletariat in the
spirit of class consciousness even in the most uninspiring, humdrum days
of bourgeois-constitutional "Shipov" bliss. Such an outcome would be
more or less similar to the outcome of almost all the democratic revolu-
tions in Europe during the nineteenth century, and our Party develop-
ment would then proceed along a thorny, hard and long, but familiar and
beaten trail.
The question now arises: in which of these two possible outcomes will
Social-Democracy find its hands actually tied in the fight against the
inconsistent and self-seeking bourgeoisie, find itself actually "merged,"
or almost so, in bourgeois democracy?
We need only put this question clearly to have no difficulty in an-
swering it without a moment's hesitation.
If the bourgeoisie succeeds in frustrating the Russian revolution by
coming to terms with tsarism, Social-Democracy will find its hands
actually tied in the fight against the inconsistent bourgeoisie; Social-
Democracy will find itself merged "in bourgeois democracy" in the sense
that the proletariat will not succeed in putting its clear imprint on the
revolution, will not succeed in settling accounts with tsarism in prole-
tarian or, as Marx used to say, "in plebeian" fashion.
If the revolution gains a decisive victory — then we shall settle accounts
with tsarism in the Jacobin, or, if you like, in the plebeian way. "The
terror in France," wrote Marx in 1848 in the famous Neue Rheinische
Zeitung, "was nothing but a plebeian way of settling accounts with the
enemies of the bourgeoisie: absolutism, feudalism and philistinism."
(See Marx, Nachlass, Mehring's edition, Vol. Ill, p. 211.) Have those
people who, in a period of a democratic revolution, try to frighten the
Social-Democratic workers in Russia with the bogey of "Jacobinism"
ever stopped to think of the significance of these words of Marx?
The Girondists of contemporary Russian Social-Democracy, the new
laira-ites, do not merge with the Osvobozhdentsi, butj in point of fact
they follow, by reason of the nature of their slogans, in the wake of the
latter. And the Osvobozhdentsi, i.e., the representatives of the liberal
bourgeoisie, wish to settle accounts with the autocracy gently, as befits
reformers, in a yielding manner, so as not to offend the aristocracy, the
nobles, the court — cautiously, without breaking anything — kindly and
politely, as befits gentlemen in white gloves (like the ones Mr.
Petrunkevich borrowed from a bashi-bazouk to wear at the reception of
"representatives of the people" (?) held by Nicholas the Bloody. See Pro-
letary, No. 5.
384 V. I. LENIN
The Jacobins of contemporary Social-Democracy — the Bolsheviks,
the adherents of the Vperyod, the Congress people, or adherents of the
Proletary, or whatever we may call them — wish by their slogans to in-
spire the revolutionary and republican petty bourgeoisie, and especially
the peasantry, to rise to the level of the consistent democratism of the
proletariat, which fully retains its individuality as a class. They want
the people, i.e., the proletariat and the peasantry, to settle accounts with
the monarchy and the aristocracy in a "plebeian way," ruthlessly de-
stroying the enemies of liberty, crushing their resistance by force, making
no concessions whatever to the accursed heritage of serfdom, of Asiatic
barbarism and of all that is an insult to mankind.
This, of course, does not mean that we necessarily propose to imitate
the Jacobins in 1793, to adopt their views, program, slogans and methods
of action. Nothing of the kind. Our program is not an old one, it is a new
one — the minimum program of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party. We have a new slogan: the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship
of the proletariat and the peasantry. We shall also have, if we live to
see a real victory of the revolution, new methods of action, concordant
with the nature and aims of the working-class Party that is striving for
a complete Socialist revolution. By our comparison we merely want to
explain that the representatives of the progressive class of the twentieth
century, of the proletariat, i.e., the Social-Democrats, are divided into
two wings (the opportunist and the revolutionary) similar to those into
which the representatives of the progressive class of the eighteenth cen-
tury, the bourgeoisie, were divided, i.e., the Girondists and the Jacobins.
Only in the event of a complete victory of the democratic revolution
will the proletariat have its hands free in the struggle against the incon-
sistent bourgeoisie, only in that event will it not become "merged" in
bourgeois democracy, but will leave its proletarian or rather proletarian-
peasant imprint on the whole revolution.
In a word, in order that it may not find itself with its hands tied in
the struggle against the inconsistent bourgeois democrats, the proletariat
must be sufficiently class conscious and strong to rouse the peasantry to
revolutionary consciousness, to direct its attack, and thereby to pursue
the line of consistent proletarian democratism independently.
That is how matters stand with regard to the question of the danger
of having our hands tied in the struggle against the inconsistent bourgeoi-
sie— a question so unsatisfactorily answered by the new /«&ra-ites. The
bourgeoisie will always be inconsistent. There is nothing more naive
and futile than attempts to set forth conditions and points,* which if
satisfied, would enable us to consider the bourgeois democrat a sincere
friend of the people. Only the proletariat can be a consistent fighter for
* As was attempted by Starovyer in his resolution, annulled by the Third
Congress, and as is attempted by the Conference in an equally bungled resolution.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 385
democracy. It may become a victorious fighter for democracy only if the
peasant masses join its revolutionary struggle. If the proletariat is not
strong enough for this, the bourgeoisie will be at the head of the democrat-
ic revolution and will impart to it an inconsistent and self-seeking na-
ture. Nothing short of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry can prevent this.
Thus, we arrive at the undoubted conclusion that it is precisely the
new Iskra-ite tactics, by reason of their objective significance, that are
playing into the hands of the bourgeois democrats. Preaching organization-
al diffusiveness, to the extent of advocating plebiscites, advocating the
principle of compromise and the divorcement of Party literature from
the Party, derogating from the aims of armed insurrection, confusing
the popular political slogans of the revolutionary proletariat with those
of the monarchist bourgeoisie, distorting the requisites for a "decisive
victory of the revolution over tsarism" — all this taken together consti-
tutes that very policy of khvostism in a revolutionary period which
perplexes the proletariat, disorganizes it, confuses its understanding and
derogates from the tactics of Social-Democracy, instead of pointing out
the only way to victory and of rallying all the revolutionary and repub-
lican elements of the people to the slogan of the proletariat.
In order to confirm this conclusion at which we have arrived on the
basis of our analysis of the resolution, let us approach this same question
from other angles. Let us see, first, how a simple and outspoken Menshe-
vik illustrates the new Iskra tactics in the Georgian Social- Democrat.
And, secondly, let us see who is actually making use of the new Iskra
slogans in the present political situation.
7. THE TACTICS OF "ELIMINATING THE CONSERVATIVES
FROM THE GOVERNMENT"
The article in the organ of the Tiflis Menshevik "Committee" (Social-
Democrat, No. 1) to which we have just referred is entitled "The Zemsky
Sobor and Our Tactics." Its author has not yet entirely forgotten our
program; he advances the slogan of a republic, but this is how he discus-
ses tactics:
"It is possible to point out two ways of achieving this goal
(a republic): either completely to ignore the Zemsky Sobor con-
vened by the government and to defeat the government by force
of arms, form a revolutionary government and convene a constituent
assembly, or to declare the Zemsky Sobor the centre of our actions,
influencing its composition and activity by force of arms and either
26—685
386 V. I. LENIN
forcibly compelling it to declare itself a constituent assembly or
convening a constituent assembly through it. These two tactics
differ from one another to a very marked degree. Let us see which
of the two is more advantageous to us."
This is how the Russian new /sira-ites set forth the ideas which were
subsequently incorporated in the resolution we have analysed. Note that
this was written before the battle of Tsushima,* when the Bulygin "scheme"
had not yet seen the light of day. Even the liberals were losing their
patience and were expressing their lack of confidence in the pages of the
legal press; but a new Iskra-ite Social-Democrat proved more credulous
than the liberals. He declares that the Zemsky Sobor "is being convened"
and trusts the tsar to such an extent that he proposes to make this as yet
non-existent Zemsky Sobor (or, possibly, "State Duma" or "Advisory
Legislative Assembly"?) the centre of our actions. Being more outspo-
ken and straightforward than the authors of the resolution adopted at
the conference, our Tiflisian does not put the two "tactics" (which he
expounds with inimitable naivete) on a par, but declares that the second
is more "advantageous." Just listen:
"The first tactics. As you know, the coming revolution is a
bourgeois revolution, i.e., its purpose is to effect such changes in
the present system as are of interest not only to the proletariat but
to the whole of bourgeois society. All classes are opposed to the
government, even the capitalists themselves. The militant proletariat
and the militant bourgeoisie are in a certain sense marching togeth-
er and jointly attacking the autocracy from different sides. The
government is completely isolated and lacks public sympathy.
For this reason it is very easy to destroy it. The whole of the Rus-
sian proletariat is not yet sufficiently class-conscious and organ-
ized to be able to carry out the revolution by itself. And even if
it were able to do so, it would carry through a proletarian (Social-
ist) revolution and not a bourgeois revolution. Hence, it is in
our interests that the government remain without allies, that it
be unable to disunite the opposition, ally the bourgeoisie to itself
and leave the proletariat isolated. ..."
So, it is in the interests of the proletariat that the tsarist government
shall not be able to disunite the bourgeoisie and the proletariat! Is it
not by mistake that this Georgian organ is called Social- Democrat instead
of being called the Osvobozhdeniye? And note the peerless philosophy with
regard to a democratic revolution! Is it not obvious that this poor Tiflisian
is hopelessly confused by the pedantic, khvostist interpretation of the
* Tsushima — the naval battle between a Russian squadron and the Japanese
fleet (May 14-15, 1905) off Tsushima Island (Korean Strait) which ended in the
utter defeat of the former.— Ed.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 38?
concept "bourgeois revolution"? He discusses the question of the possible
isolation of the proletariat in a democratic revolution and forgets . . .
forgets about a trifle . . . about the peasantry! Of the possible allies of
the proletariat he knows and favours the landowning Zemstvo-ists and
is not aware of the peasants. And this in the Caucasus! Well, were we not
right when we said that by its method of reasoning the new Iskra was sink*
ing to the level of the monarchist bourgeoisie instead of raising the rev-
olutionary peasantry to the position of an ally?
"... Otherwise the defeat of the proletariat and the victory of
the government are inevitable. This is just what the autocracy
is striving for. In its Zemsky $obor it will undoubtedly attract to
its side the representatives of the nobility, of the Zemstvos, the
city Dumas, the universities and similar bourgeois institutions.
It will try to appease them with petty concessions, thereby rec-
onciling them to itself. Strengthened in this way, it will direct all
its blows against the working people who will have been isolated.
It is our duty to prevent such an unfortunate outcome. But
can this be done by tne first method? Let us assume that we paid no
attention whatever to thzZem^ky Sooor, but started to prepare for in-
surrection ourselves, and one fine day came out on the streets armed
and ready for battle. The result would be that we would be confront-
ed not with one but with two enemies: the government and the
Zemsky Sobor. While we would be preparing, they would have had
time to come to terms, to enter into an agreement with one an-
other, to draw up a constitution advantageous to themselves, and to
divide power between them. These trctics are of direct advantage to
the government, and we must reject them in no uncertain fashion...."
Now this is frank! We must resolutely reject the "tactics" of prepar-
ing an uprising because the government "would have had time" to come
to terms with the bourgeoisie! Can one find in the old literature of
the most rabid "Economism" anything that would even approximate
such a disgrace to revolutionary Social-Democracy? That uprisings and
outbreaks of workers and peasants are taking place here and there is a
fact. The Zemsky Sobor is a Bulygin promise. And the Social- Democrat
in the city of Tiflis decides: to reject the tactics of preparing an
uprising and to wait for a "centre of influence" — the Zemsky Sobor. . . .
". . . The second tactics, on the contrary, consist in placing the
Zemsky Sobor under our surveillance, in not giving it the opportu-
nity of acting according to its own will and entering into an agree-
ment with the government.*
* By what means can the Zemstvo-ists be deprived of their own will? Perhaps
by the use of a special sort of litmus paper?
25*
388 v. I. LENIN
"We support the Zemsky Sobor to the extent that it fights
the autocracy, and we fight against it in all cases of reconcilia-
tion with the autocracy on its part. By energetic interference and
force we shall cause a split among the deputies,* rally the
radicals to our side, eliminate the conservatives from the govern-
ment and thus put the whole Zemsky Sobor on the path of revolu-
tion. Thanks to such tactics the government will always remain
isolated, the opposition strong and thereby the establishment of
a democratic system will be facilitated."
Well, well! Let anyone now say that we exaggerate the new J«fcra-ites'
turn to the most vulgar semblance of Economism. This is positively like
the famous powder for exterminating flies: you catch the fly, sprinkle
it with the powder and the fly will die. Split the deputies ot the Zemsky
Sobor by force , "eliminate the conservatives from the government" — and
the whole Zeiit,sky Sobor will take the path of revolution. . . . No "Jaco-
bin" armed uprising of any sort, but just like that, in genteel, almost
parliamentary fashion, "influencing" the members of the Zemsky Sobor.
Poor Russia! It has been said of her that she always wears the out-
moded bonnets that Europe discards. We have no parliament as yet,
even Bulygin has not yet promised one, but there is parliamentary cretin-
ism galore.
". . . How should this interference be effected? First of all, we
shall demand that the Zemsky Sobor be convened on the basis of
universal and equal suffrage, direct elections and secret ballot.
Simultaneously with the announcement** of this method of election,
complete freedom to carry on the election campaign, i.e., freedom
of assembly, of speech and of the press, the inviolability of the
voters and those elected and the release of all political prison-
ers must be made law.*** The elections themselves must be fixed
as late as possible so that we have sufficient time to inform and
prepare the people. And since the drafting of the regulations govern-
ing the convocation of the Sobor has been entrusted to a commission
headed by Bulygin, Minister of the Interior, we should also
exert pressure on this commission and on its members.****
If the Bulygin Commission refused to satisfy our demands*****
* Heavens! This is certainly rendering tactics "profound"! There are no
forces available to fight in the streets, but it is possible "to split the deputies"
"by force." Listen, comrade from Tiflis, one may prevaricate, but one should
know the limit....
** In Iskrat
*** By Nicholas?
**** So this is what is meant by the tactics of "eliminating the conserva-
tives from the government"!
***** But surely such a thing cannot happen if we follow these correct and
profound tactics!
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 38Jj
and grants suffrage only to property owners, then we must inter-
fere in these elections and, by revolutionary means, force the voters
to elect progressive candidates and to demand a constituent assem-
bly in the Zcmsky Sobor. Finally, we must impel the Zemsky Sobor
to convene a constituent assembly or to declare itself to be such,
resorting to all possible measures for this purpose: demonstrations,
strikes, and, if need be, insurrection. The armed proletariat must
constitute itself the defender of the constituent assembly, and both
together* will march forward to a democratic republic.
"Such are the Social-Democratic tactics, and they alone will
secure us victory."
Let not the reader imagine that this incredible rubbish is simply a
maiden attempt at writing on the part of some new Iskra- adherent
who has no authority and no influence. No, this is what is stated in the
organ of an entire committee of new Iskra-itcs, the Tiflis Committee.
More than that. This rubbish has been openly endorsed by the "Lskra"
in No. 100 of which we read the following about that issue of the Social-
Democrat:
"The first issue is edited in a lively and competent manner. The
experienced hand of a capable editor and publicist is perceptible. . . .
It may be said with all confidence that the newspaper will carry out
the task it has set itself brilliantly."
Yes! If that task is clearly to show one and all the utter ideological
bankruptcy of new Iskra- ism, then it has indeed been carried out "bril-
liantly." No one could have expressed the new Iskra-ites* degradation
to liberal bourgeois opportunism in a more "lively, competent and ca-
pable" manner.
8. OWOBOZHDENIYE-ISM AND NEW ISKRA-ISU
Let us now proceed to another graphic confirmation of the political
meaning of new Iskra-ism.
In a splendid, remarkable and most instructive article, entitled "How
To Find Oneself" (Osvobozhdeniye, No. 71), Mr. Struve wages war against
the "programmatic revolutionism" of our extreme parties. Mr. Struve is
particularly displeased with me personally.** As for myselt, Mr. Struve
* Both the armed proletariat and the conservatives "eliminated from the
government"?
** "In comparison with the revolutionism of Messrs. Lenin and associates,
the revolutionism of the West European Social-Democracy of Bebel, and even
of Kautsky, is opportunism; but the foundations of even this revolutionism,
already become toned down, have been undermined and washed away by history."
A most irate thrust. Only Mr. Struve is mistaken in thinking that it is possible
390 V. I. LENIN
could not please me more: I could not wish for a better ally in the fight
against the reviving Economism of the new /afcra-ites and the utter lack
of principles displayed by the "Socialist- Revolutionaries." On some
other occasion we shall relate how Mr. Struve and the Osvobozhdeniye
proved in practice how utterly reactionary are the "amendments" to
Marxism made in the draft program of the Socialist- Revolutionaries.
We have already repeatedly spoken about how Mr. Struve rendered me hon-
est, faitKful and real service every time he approved of the new Iskra-
ites in principle,* and we shall say so once more now.
Mr. Struve 's article contains a number of very interesting statements,
which we can note here only in passing. He intends "to create Russian
democracy by relying on class collaboration and not on class struggle,"
in which case "the socially privileged intelligentsia" (something in the
nature of the "cultured nobility" to which Mr. Struve makes obeisance
with the grace of a genuinely fashionable . . . lackey) will bring the weight
of its "social position" (the weight of its moneybags) to this "non-class"
party. Mr. Struve expresses the desire to show the youth the worthless-
ness "of the radical commonplace to the effect that the bourgeoisie has
to pile everything on me, as if I were dead. It is sufficient for me to make a chal-
lenge to Mr. Struve, which he will never be able to accept. When and where did
I call the revolutionism of Bebel and Kautsky "opportunism"? When and where
did I ever claim to have created any sort of special trend in international Social-
Democracy not identical with the trend of Bebel and Kautsky? When and where
have there been manifest differences between me, on the one hand, and Bebel
and Kautsky on the other — differences even slightly approximating in seriousness
the differences between Bebel and Kautsky, for instance, in Breslau on the agra-
rian question? Let Mr. Struve try to answer these three questions.
And to our readers we sa.y: The liberal bourgeoisie everywhere and always
has recourse to the method of assuring its adherents in a given country that the
Social-Democrats of that country are the most unreasonable, whereas their com-
rades in a neighbouiing country are "good boys." The German bourgeoisie has
held up those "good boys" of French Socialists as models for the Bebcls and the
Kautskys hundreds of times. The French bourgeoisie quite recently pointed to the
"good boy" Bebel as a model for the French Socialists. It is an old trick, Mr. Struve!
You will find only children and ignoramuses swallowing that bait. The complete
unanimity of international revolutionary Social-Democracy on all major questions
of program and tactics is an incontrovertible fact.
* Let us remind the reader that the article [by Plekhanov — Ed.] "What
Should Not be Done?" (Iskra No. 52) was hailed with pomp and fanfare by the
Osvobozhdeniye as a "noteworthy turn" towards concessions to the opportunists.
The trend of the principles behind the new Iskra ideas was especially lauded by
the Osvobozhdeniye in an item on the split among the Russian Social -Democrats.
Commenting on Trotsky's pamphlet, "Our Political Tasks," the Osvobozhdeniye
pointed out the similarity between the ideas of this author and what was once
written and said by the editors of the Rabocheye Dyelo, Krichevsky, Martynov,
Akimov (see the leaflet entitled "An Obliging Liberal," published by the Vpe-
ryod). The Osvobozhdeniye welcomed Martynov's pamphlet on the two dictator-
ships (c/. the item in the Vperyod No. 9). Finally, Starovyer's belated complaints
about the old slogan of the old Iskra, "first draw a line of demarcation and ther>
unite," met with special sympathy on the part of the Osvobozhdeniye.
TWO TACTICS OF S,-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 391
become frightened and has sold out the proletariat and the cause of lib-
erty." (We welcome this desire with all our heart. Nothing would con-
firm the correctness of this Marxian "commonplace" better than a war
waged against it by Mr. Struve. Please, Mr. Struve, don't pigeon-hole
this splendid plan of yours!)
For the purposes of our subject it is important to note the practical
slogans against which this politically sensitive representative of the Rus-
sian bourgeoisie, who is so responsive to the slightest change in the weath-
er, is fighting at the present time. First, he is fighting against the slo-
gan of republicanism. Mr. Struve is firmly convinced that this slogan
is "incomprehensible and foreign to the masses of the people" (he forgets
to add: comprehensible, but not of advantage to the bourgeoisie!). We
should like to see what reply Mr. Struve would get from the workers
in our study circles and at our mass meetings ! Or are the workers not of
the people? And what about the peasants? They are given to what
Mr. Struve calls "naive republicanism" ("to kick out the tsar") — but the
liberal bourgeoisie believes that naive republicanism will be replaced not
by deliberate republicanism but by deliberate monarchism! Qa depend,
Mr. Struve; it all depends on circumstances. Neither tsarism nor the bour-
geoisie can do other than oppose a radical improvement in the condi-
tion of the peasantry at the expense of the landed estates, whereas the
working class cannot but assist the peasantry in this respect.
Secondly, Mr. Struve assures us that "in a civil war the party that
attacks, always proves to be in the wrong." This idea verges closely on the
above-mentioned trends of ti-e new Iskra ideas. We will not say, of course,
that in civil war it is always advantageous to attack; no, sometimes de-
fensive tactics are imperative for a time. But to apply a proposition like
the one Mr. Struve has made to Russia in 1905 merely means to reveal
some of that "radical commonplace" ("the bourgeoisie takes fright and
betrays the cause of liberty"). Whoever now refuses to attack the autoc-
racy and reaction, whoever is not making preparations for such an attack,
whoever is not advocating it, takes the name of adherent of the revolu-
tion in vain.
Mr. Struve condemns the slogans calling for "secrecy" and "rioting"
(a riot being "an uprising in miniature"). Mr. Struve spurns both the
one and the other — and he does so from the standpoint of "approaching
the masses!" We should like to ask Mr. Struve whether he can point to
any passage in, for instance, What Is To Be Done? — the work of an extreme
revolutionary from his standpoint — which advocates rioting. As regards
"secrecy" is there really much difference between, for example, us and
Mr. Struve? Are we not both working on "illegal" newspapers which are
being smuggled into Russia "secretly" and which serve the "secret" groups
of either the Osvobozhdeniye League or the R.S.D.L.P.? Our workers' mass
meetings are often held "secretly" — that sin does exist. But what about
the meetings of the gentlemen of the Osvobozkdeniye League? Is there any
392 V. I. LENIN
reason why you should brag, Mr. Struve, and look down upon the de-
spised partisans of despised secrecy?
True, the supplying of arms to the workers demands strict secrecy.
On this point Mr. Struve is rather more outspoken. Just listen: "As re-
gards armed insurrection or a revolution in the technical sense, only mass
propaganda in favour of a democratic program can create the social psy-
chology requisite for a general armed uprising. Thus, even from the point
of view" that an armed uprising is the inevitable consummation of the pre-
sent struggle for emancipation — a view which I do not share — the per*
meation of the masses with ideas of democratic reform is a fundamental
and most necessary task."
Mr. Struve tries to dodge the question. He speaks of the inevitability
of an uprising instead of speaking about its imperativeness for the victory
of the revolution. The uprising — unprepared, spontaneous, sporadic — has
already begun. No one can positively vouch that it will develop into a
comprehensive and integral popular armed uprising, for that depends
on the state of the revolutionary forces (which can be fully gauged only
in the course of the struggle itself), on the behaviour of the government
and the bourgeoisie, and on a number of other circumstances which it
is impossible to estimate exactly. There is no point in switching the discus-
sion to inevitability, in the sense of absolute certainty with regard to
some definite event, as Mr. Struve does. What you must discuss, if
you want to be a partisan of the revolution, is whether insurrection is
imperative for the victory of the revolution, whether it is imperative
to proclaim it vigorously, to advocate and make immediate and ener-
getic preparations for it. Mr. Struve cannot fail to understand this
difference: he does not, for instance, obscure the question of the necessity
of universal suffrage, which is indisputable for a democrat, by raising
the question of whether its attainment is inevitable in the course of the
present revolution, which is debatable and of no urgency for people en-
gaged in political activity. By dodging the question of the necessity of
an uprising, Mr. Struve expresses the innermost essence of the political
position of the liberal bourgeoisie. In the first place, the bourgeoisie
would rather come to terms with the autocracy than crush it; secondly,
the bourgeoisie in any case leaves the armed struggle to the workers.
This is the real meaning of Mr. Struve 's evasiveness. That is why he draws
ftodbfrom the questionof the necessity of an uprising to the question of the
"social psychology" requisite for it, of preliminary "propaganda." Just
as the bourgeois windbags in the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848 engaged
in drawing up resolutions, declarations and decisions, in "mass pro-
paganda" and in preparing the "requisite social psychology" at a time
when it was a matter of resisting trie armed force of the government, when
the movement "had made" an armed struggle "imperative," when* ver-
bal persuasion alone (which is a hundredfold necessary during the pre-
paratory period) became common, bourgeois inactivity and cowardice —
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 393
so also Mr. Struve evades the question of insurrection, screening himself
behind phrases. Mr. Struve graphically shows us what many Social-De-
mocrats stubbornly fail to see, namely, that a revolutionary period differs
from ordinary, everyday preparatory periods in history in that the senti-
ments, the excitation of feeling and convictions of the masses must and
do reveal themselves in action.
Vulgar revolutionism is the failure to see that the word is also a deed;
this proposition is indisputable when applied to history generally or to
those periods of history when no open political mass actions take place, and
when they cannot be replaced or artificially evoked by putsches of any sort.
Khvostism on the part of revolutionaries is the failure to understand that —
when a revolutionary period has started, when the old "superstructure" has
cracked from top to bottom, when open political action on the part of the
classes and masses who are creating a new superstructure for themselves
has become an accomplished fact, when civil war has begun — if one still
confines oneself to "words" as of old, failing to advance the direct slo-
gan to pass to "deeds," if one still tries to avoid deeds by pleading the
need for "psychological requisites" and "propaganda" in general, that is
apathy, deadness, pedantry, or else it is betrayal of the revolution and
treachery to it. The Frankfurt windbags of the democratic bourgeoisie
are a memorable historical example of just such treachery or of just
such pedantic stupidity.
Would you like an explanation of this difference between vulgar revo-
lutionism and the khvostism of revolutionaries, taken from the history of
the Social-Democratic movement in Russia? We shall give you such an
explanation. Just call to mind the years 1901 and 1902, which are so
recent but which already seem ancient history to us today. Demonstra-
tions had begun. The protagonists of vulgar revolutionism raised a cry
about "storming" (Rabocheye Dyelo), "bloodthirsty leaflets" were is-
sued (of Berlin origin, if my memory does not fail me), attacks were made
on the "literariness" and on the bureaucratic nature of the idea of conduct,
ing agitation on a national scale through a newspaper (Nadezhdin).
On the other hand, the revolutionaries given to khvostism preached that
"the economic struggle is the best means of political agitation." What was
the attitude of the revolutionary Social-Democrats? They attacked both
of these tendencies. They condemned flashes in the pan and the cries
about storming, for it was or should have been obvious to all that open
mass action was a matter of days to come. They condemned khvostism and
bluntly issued the slogan even of a popular armed uprising, not in the
sense of a direct appeal (Mr. Struve would not discover any appeals to
"riots" in our utterances of that period), but in the sense of a necessary
deduction, in the sense of "propaganda" (about which Mr. Struve has be-
thought himself only now — our honourable Mr. Struve is always several
years behind the times), in the sense of preparing that very "requisite
social psychology" about which the representatives of the bewildered,
394 V. I. LENIN
huckstering bourgeoisie are now holding forth so "sadly and inappropri-
ately. "At that time propaganda and agitation, agitation and propaganda,
were really pushed to the fore by reason of the objective state of affairs.
At that time the work of publishing an all- Russian political newspaper,
the weekly issuance of which was regarded as an ideal, could be proposed
(and was proposed in What Is To Be Done"?) as the touchstone of the work
of preparing for an uprising. At that time the slogans advocating mass
agitation'insteod of direct armed action, preparation of the social psy-
chology requisite for insurrection instead of flashes in the pan, were the
only correct slogans for the revolutionary Social-Democratic movement.
At the present time the slogans have been superseded by events, the move-
ment has gone beyond them, they have become cast-offs, rags fit only
to clothe the hypocrisy of the OsvobozMeniye and thekhvostism of the new
Iskral
Or am I mistaken, perhaps? Perhaps the revolution has not yet begun?
Perhaps the time for open political action of classes has not yet arrived?
Perhaps there is still no civil war, and the criticism of weapons should as
yet not be the necessary and obligatory successor, heir, trustee and executor
of the weapon of criticism?
Look around, come out of your study into the streets; you will find
an answer to these questions there. Has not the government itself started
civil war by shooting down hosts of peaceful and unarmed citizens every-
where? Are not the armed Black- Hundreds acting as "arguments" of the
autocracy? Has not the bourgeoisie — even the bourgeoisie — recognized the
need for a citizens' militia? Does not Mr. Struve himself, the ideally
moderate and punctilious Mr. Struve, say (alas, he says so only to evade
the point!) that "the open nature of revolutionary action" (that's the
sort of fellows we are today!) "is now one of the most important conditions
for exerting an educating influence upon the masses of the people?"
Those who have eyes to see can have no doubt as to how the question
of armed insurrection must now be presented by the partisans of revolu-
tion. Just take a look at the three ways in which this question has been
presented in the organs of the free press which are at all capable of influ-
encing the masses.
The first presentation. The resolution of the Third Congress of the Rus-
sian Social-Democratic Labour Party.* It is publicly acknowledged and
declared that the general democratic revolutionary movement has already
* The following is the text in full:
"Whereas
"1. the proletariat, being, by virtue of its very position, the most advanced
and the only consistently revolutionary class, is for that very reason called upon
to play the leading part in the general democratic revolutionary movement in
Russia;
"2. this movement has already brought about the necessity for an armed
uprising;
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION
brought about the necessity for an armed uprising. The organization of the
proletariat for an uprising has been placed on the order of the day as one of
the essential, principal and indispensable tasks of the Party. Instructions
are issued to adopt the most energetic measures to arm the proletariat and
to ensure the possibility of directly leading the uprising.
The second presentation. An article in the Osvoboz)ideniyey containing a
statement of principles, by the "leader of the Russian constitutionalists"
(as Mr. Struve was recently described by such an influential organ of the
European bourgeoisie as the Frankfurter Zeitung), or the leader of the
Russian progressive bourgeoisie. He does not share the opinion that an
uprising is inevitable. Secret activity and riots are the specific methods of
irrational revolutionism. Republicanism is a method of stunning. The
question of armed insurrection is really a mere technical question, whereas
"the fundamental and most necessary task" is to carry on mass propaganda
and to prepare the requisite social psychology.
The third presentation. The resolution of the new Iskra-itc Conference.
Our task is to prepare an uprising. A planned uprising is precluded. Favour-
able conditions for an uprising are created by the disorganization of the
government, by our agitation, and by our organization. Only then "can
technical military preparations acquire more or less serious significance."
And is that all? Yes, that is all. The new Iskra-ite leaders of the pro-
letariat still do not know whether insurrection has become imperative. It is
still not clear to them whether the task of organizing the proletariat for
direct battle has become an urgent one. It is not necessary to urge the
"3. the proletariat will inevitably take a most energetic part in this uprising,
this participation determining the fate of the revolution in Russia;
"4. the proletariat can play the leading part in this revolution only if it is
welded into a united and independent political force under the banner of the Social-
Democratic Labour Party, which is to guide its struggle not only ideologically
but practically as well;
"5. it is only by filling this part that the proletariat can be assured of the
most favourable conditions for the struggle for Socialism against the propertied
classes of a bourgeois-democratic Russia;
"the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. recognizes that the task of otganizing
the proletariat for direct struggle against the autocracy through armed insurrection
is one of the most important and pressing tasks of the Party in the present revo-
lutionary period.
"The Congress therefore resolves to instruct all the Party organizations:
"a) to explain to the proletariat by means of propaganda and agitation not
only the political importance, but also the practical organizational aspect of the
impending armed uprising;
"b) in this propaganda and agitation to explain the part played by mass poli-
tical strikes, which may be of great importance at the beginning and in the very
process of the insurrection;
"c) to adopt the most energetic measures to arm the proletariat and also to
draw up a plan for the armed uprising and for direct leadership of the latter,
establishing for this purpose, to the extent that it is necessary, special groups
of Party functionaries." (Author's note to the 1908 edition. — Ed.)
306 V. I. LENIN
adoption of the most energetic measures; it is far more important (in 1905,
and not in 1902) to explain in general outlines under what conditions these
measures "may" acquire "more or less serious" significance. . . .
Do you see now, Comrades of the new Iskra, where your turn to Marty,
novism has led you? Do you realize that your political philosophy has
proved to be a rehash of the Osvobozhdeniye philosophy? — that (against your
will and without your being aware of it) you are following in the wake of the
monarchist bourgeoisie? Is it clear to you now that, while repeating what
you know by rote and attaining perfection in sophistry, you have lost sight
of the fact that — in the memorable words of Peter Struve 's memorable
article — "the open nature of revolutionary action is now one of the most
important conditions for exerting an educating influence upon the masses
of the people"?
9. WHAT DOES BEING A PARTY OF EXTREME OPPOSITION
IN TIME OF REVOLUTION MEAN?
Let us return to the resolution on a provisional government. We have
shown that the tactics of the new /s&ra-ites do not push the revolution
further ahead — a thing which they may have wanted their resolution to
make possible for them — but back. We have shown that these very tactics tie
the hands of Social-Democracy in the struggle against the inconsistent bour-
goisie and do not safeguard it against merging in bourgeois democracy.
Naturally, the false premises of the resolution lead to the false conclusion
that: "Therefore, Social-Democracy must not set itself the aim of seizing
power or sharing power in the provisional government, but must re-
main the party of extreme revolutionary opposition." Consider the first
half of this conclusion, which is part of a statement of aims. Do the new
Iskra-ites declare the aim of Social-Democratic activity to be a decisive
victory of the revolution over tsarism? They do. They are not able to for-
mulate the requisites for a decisive victory correctly, and they stray into
the OsvdbozMeniye formulation, but they do set themselves the aforemen-
tioned aim. Further: do they connect a provisional government with an up-
rising? Yes, they do so plainly, by stating that a provisional government
"will emerge from a victorious popular uprising." Finally, do they set
themselves the aim of leading the uprising? Yes, they do. Like Mr. Struve,
they do not admit that an uprising is imperative and urgent, but at the
same time, in contradistinction to Mr. Struve, they say that "Social-De-
mocracy strives to subject it" (the uprising) "to its influence and leader-
ship and to use it in the interests of the working class."
Does not this hang together nicely? We set ourselves the aim of sub-
jecting the uprising of both the proletarian and the non-proletarian masses
to our influence and our leadership, and of using it in our interests. Accord-
ingly, we set ourselves the aim of leading, in the course of the uprising,
TWO TACTICS OP S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION H97
both the proletariat and the revolutionary bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoi-
sie ("the non-proletarian groups"), i.e., of "sharing" the leadership of the
uprising between the Social-Democrats and the revolutionary bourgeoisie.
We set ourselves the aim of securing victory for the uprising, which should
lead to the establishment of a provisional government "which will emerge
from a victorious popular uprising"). Therefore . . . therefore we must not
set ourselves the aim of seizing power or of sharing it in a provisional
revolutionary government ! !
Our friends cannot dovetail their arguments. They vacillate between the
standpoint of Mr. Struve, who is evading the issue of an uprising, and the
standpoint of revolutionary Social -Democracy, which calls upon us to under-
take this urgent task. They vacillate between anarchism, which condemns
participation in a provisional revolutionary government on principle,
as treachery to the proletariat, and Marxism, which demands such partic-
ipation on condition that the Social-Democratic Party exercise the leading
influence in the uprising.* They have absolutely no independent position:
neither that of Mr. Struve, who wants to come to terms with tsarism and is
therefore compelled to resort to evasions and subterfuges on the question
of insurrection, nor that of the anarchists, who condemn all action "from
above" and all participation in a bourgeois revolution. The new Iskra-ites
confuse a deal with tsarism with a victory over tsarism. They want to take
part in the bourgeois revolution. They have gone somewhat in advance of
Martynov's Two Dictatorships. They even consent to lead the uprising of
the people — in order to renounce that leadership immediately after victory
is won (or, perhaps, immediately before the victory?), i.e., in order not
to avail themselves of the fruits of victory but to turn them over entirely
1o the bourgeoisie. This is what they call "using the uprising in the interests
of the working class. ..."
There is no need to dwell on this muddle any longer. It will be more use-
ful to examine how this muddle originated in the formulation which reads:
"to remain the party of extreme revolutionary opposition."
This is one of the familiar propositions of international revolutionary
Social-Democracy. It is a perfectly correct proposition. It has become a
truism for all opponents of revisionism or opportunism in parliamentary
countries. It has become generally accepted as the legitimate and necessary
rebuff to "parliamentary cretinism," Millerandism, Bernsteinism and
the Italian reformism of the Turati brand. Our good new Jsfcra-ites
have learned this excellent proposition by heart and are zealously apply-
ing it ... quite inappropriately. Categories of parliamentary struggle are
introduced into resolutions written for conditions in which no parliament
exists. The concept "opposition," which has become the reflection and the
expression of a political situation in which no one seriously speaks of an
* See Proletary, No. 3, "On a Provisional Revolutionary Government," article
two.
398 V. I. LENIN
uprising, is senselessly carried over to a situation in which an uprising
has begun and in which all the supporters of the revolution are thinking and
talking about leadership in it. The desire to "stick to'9 old methods, *'.«.,
action only "from below," is expressed with pomp and circumstance pre-
cisely at a time when the revolution has confronted us with the necessity, in
the event of the uprising being victorious, of acting from above,
No, our new Iskra-ites are decidedly out of luck! Even when they for-
mulate a correct Social-Democratic proposition they don't know how to
apply it correctly. They failed to take into consideration that in a period in
which a revolution has begun, when there is no parliament in existence,
when there is civil war, when there are insurrectionary outbreaks, the con-
cepts and terms of parliamentary struggle are changed and transformed into
their opposites. They failed to take into consideration the fact that, under
the circumstances referred to, amendments are moved byway of street dem-
onstrations, interpellations are introduced in the form of aggressive action
by armed citizens, opposition to the government is expressed by forci-
bly overthrowing the government.
Like a well-known hero of our folklore, who always repeated good ad-
vice just when it was most out of place, our admirers of Martynov repeat the
lessons of peaceful parliamentarism just at a time when, as they them-
selves admit, actual hostilities have commenced. There is nothing more bi-
zarre than this pompous emphasis of the slogan "extreme opposition" in a
resolution which begins by referring to a "decisive victory of the revolu-
tion" and to a "popular uprising"! Just try to visualize, gentlemen, what
it means to represent the "extreme opposition" in an insurrectionary period.
Does it mean exposing the government or deposing it? Does it mean voting
against the government or defeating its armed forces in open battle? Does
it mean refusing the government replenishments for its Treasury or does it
mean the revolutionary seizure of this Treasury in order to use it for the
requirements of the uprising, to arm the workers and peasants and to con-
voke a constituent assembly? Do you not begin to understand, gentlemen,
that the term "extreme opposition" expresses only negative actions — to
expose, to vote against, to refuse? Why is this so? Because this term ap-
plies only to parliamentary struggle and, moreover, to a period when no one
makes "decisive victory" the immediate object of the struggle. Do you not
begin to understand that things undergo a cardinal change in this respect
from the moment the politically oppressed people launch a determined
attack along the whole front in desperate battle for victory?
The workers ask us: Is it necessary to buckle down energetically to the
urgent business of insurrection? What is to be done to make the incipient
uprising victorious? What use should be made of the victory? What pro-
gram can and should be applied when victory is achieved? The new Iskra-
ites, who are making Marxism more profound, answer: We must remain
the party of extreme revolutionary opposition. . . . Well, were we not
right in calling these knights past masters in philistinism?
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 399
10. "REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNES" AND REVOLUTIONARY-
DEMOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND
THE PEASANTRY
The Conference of the new Iskra-ites did not stick to the anarchist po-
sition into which the new Iskra had talked itself (only "from below," not
"from below and from above"). The absurdity of conceding an uprising
and not conceding victory and participation in a provisional revolution-
ary government was too glaring. The resolution therefore introduced cer-
tain reservations and restrictions into the solution of the question pro-
posed by Martynov andMartov. Let us consider these reservations as stated
in the following section of the resolution:
"These tactics" ("to remain the party of extreme revolutionary
opposition") "do not, of course, in any way exclude the expediency
of a partial and episodic seizure of power and the establishment of
revolutionary communes in one or another city, in one or another
district, exclusively for the purpose of helping to spread the upris-
ing and disrupting the government."
That being the case, it means that in principle they concede action
from above as well as from below. It means that the proposition laid down
in L. Martov's well-known article in the Iskra (No. 93) is being discarded,
and that the tactics of the Vperyod, i.e., not only "from below," but also
"from above," are acknowledged as correct.
Further, the seizure of power (even if it is partial, episodic, etc.)
obviously presupposes the participation not only of Social-Democrats
and not only of the proletariat. This follows from the fact that it is not
only the proletariat that is interested and takes an active part in a demo-
cratic revolution. This follows from the fact that the uprising is a "popu-
lar uprising," as is stated in the beginning of the resolution we are dis-
cussing, that "non-proletarian groups" (the words used in the Conference
resolution on the uprising), i.e., the bourgeoisie, also take part in it.
Hence, the principle that any participation of Socialists in a provisional
revolutionary government jointly with the petty bourgeoisie is treachery
to the working class was thrown overboard by the Conference, which is
what the Vperyod demanded. "Treachery" does not cease to be treachery
because the action which constitutes it is partial, episodic, local, etc.
Hence, the parallel established between participation in a provisional
revolutionary government and vulgar Jauresism was thrown overboard
by the Conference, which is what the Vperyod demanded. A government
does not cease to be a government because its power does not extend to
many cities but is confined to a single city, does not extend to many
districts but is confined to a single district; nor is the fact that it is a
government determined by what it is called. Thus, the Conference discarded
400 V. I. LENIN
the formulation of the principles involved in this question which the new
Iskra tried to give.
Let us now see whether the restrictions imposed by the Conference on
the formation of revolutionary governments and participation in them,
which is now permitted in principle, are reasonable. What the difference
is between the concept "episodic" and the concept "provisional," we do
not know. We are afraid that this "new" and foreign word is intended to
cover up a lack of clear thinking. It appears "more profound," but actu-
ally it is only more foggy and confused. What is the difference between
the "expediency" of a partial "seizure of power" in a city or district, and
participation in a provisional revolutionary government of the entire
state? Do not "cities" include such cities as St. Petersburg, where the
events of January 9 took place? Do not districts include the Caucasus,
which is bigger than many a state? Will not the problems (which at one
time vexed the new Iskra) of what to do with the prisons, the police,
public funds, etc., confront us the moment we "seize power" in a single
city, let alone in a district? No one will deny, of course, that if we lack
sufficient forces, if the uprising is not wholly victorious, or if the victory
is indecisive, it is possible that provisional revolutionary governments
will be established in separate localities, in individual cities and the like.
But what is the point of such an assumption, gentlemen? Do not you
yourselves speak at the beginning of the resolution about a "decisive vic-
tory of the revolution," about a "victorious popular uprising"?? Since
when have the Social-Democrats taken over the job of the anarchists:
to divide the attention and the aims of the proletariat, to direct its atten-
tion to the "partial" instead of to the general, the single, the integral and
complete? While presupposing the "seizure of power" in a single city,
you yourselves speak of "spreading the uprising" — to another city, may
we venture to think? to all cities, may we dare to hope? Your conclusions,
gentlemen, are as unsound and haphazard, as contradictory and confused
as your premises. The Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. gave an exhaus-
tive and clear answer to the question of a provisional revolutionary gov-
ernment in general. And this answer covers all cases of local provisional
governments as well. The answer given by the Conference, however, by
artificially and arbitrarily singling out a part of the question, merely
dodges (but unsuccessfully) the question as a whole, and creates confusion.
What does the term "revolutionary commune" mean? Does it differ
from the concept "provisional revolutionary government," and, if so, in
what respect? The gentlemen of the Conference themselves do not know.
Confusion of revolutionary thought leads them, as very often happens,
to revolutionary phrasemongering. Yes, the use of the words "revolu-
tionary commune" in a resolution passed by representatives of Social-
Democracy is revolutionary phrasemongering and nothing more. Marx
more than once condemned such phrasemongering, when "fascinating"
terms of the bygone past were used to hide the tasks of the future. In such
TWO TACTICS OF S.«D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 401
cases, a fascinating term that has played its part in history becomes futile
and pernicious trumpery, a child's rattle. We must explain to the workers
and to the whole of the people clearly and unequivocally why we want a
provisional revolutionary government to be set up, and exactly what
changes we shall accomplish, if we exercise decisive influence on the gov-
ernment, on the very morrow of the victory of the popular uprising which
has already commenced. These are the questions that confront political
leaders.
The Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. gave perfectly clear answers to
these questions and drew up a complete program of these changes — the
minimum program of our Party. The word "commune," however, is not
an answer at all; it only serves to confuse people by the distant echo of a
sonorous phrase, or empty rhetoric. The more we cherish the memory of
the Paris Commune of 1871, for instance, the less permissible is it to refer
to it off-hand, without analysing its mistakes and the special conditions
attending it. To do so would be to follow the absurd example set by the
Blanquists, who (in 1874, in their "Manifesto") paid homage to every act
of the Commune, and whom Engels ridiculed. What reply will a "Conferen-
cer" give to a worker who asks him about this "revolutionary commune,"
mentioned in the resolution? He will only be able to tell him that this
was the name given to a workers ' government that once existed, which was
unable to and could not at that time, distinguish between the elements of
a democratic revolution and those of a Socialist revolution, which con-
fused the tasks of fighting for a republic with the tasks of fighting for So-
cialism, which was unable to carry out the task of launching an energetic
military offensive against Versailles, which made a mistake in not seiz-
ing the Bank of France, etc. In short, whether in your answer you refer
to the Paris Commune or to some other commune, your answer will be:
it was a government such as ours should not be. A fine answer, isn't it! Does
it not testify to pedantic ratiocination and impotence on the part of a
revolutionary when he maintains silence with regard to the practical
program of the Party and makes inappropriate attempts in the resolution
to give a lesson in history? Does this not reveal the very mistake which
they unsuccessfully tried to accuse us of having committed, i.e., confusing
a democratic revolution with a Socialist revolution, between which none
of the "communes" could differentiate?
The aim of a provisional government (so inappropriately termed
"commune") is declared to be "exclusively" to spread the uprising and
to disrupt the government. Taken in its literal sense, the word "exclusive-
ly" eliminates all other aims; it is an echo of the absurd theory of "only
from below." Such elimination of other aims is another instance of short-
sightedness and lack of reflection. A "revolutionary commune," i.e.,
a revolutionary government, even if only in a single city, will inevitably
have to administer (even if provisionally, "partly, episodically") all the
affairs of state, and it is the height of folly to hide one's head under
26—686
402 V. I. LENIN
one's wing and refuse to see this. This government will have to enact an
eight-hour working day, establish workers' control over factories, insti-
tute free universal education, introduce the election of judges, set up peas-
ant committees, etc.; in a word, it will certainly have to carry out a num-
ber of reforms. To designate these reforms as "helping to spread the up-
rising" would be playing around with words and deliberately causing
greater jconfusion in a matter which requires absolute clarity.
The concluding part of the new Iskra-ites ' resolution does not provide
any new material for a criticism of the trend towards the principles of
^Economism" which has revived in our Party, but it illustrates what has
been said above from a somewhat different angle.
Here is that part:
"Only in one event should Social -Democracy, on its own initi-
ative, direct its efforts towards seizing power and holding it as
long as possible — namely, in the event of the revolution spreading
to the advanced countries of Western Europe, where conditions for
the achievement of Socialism have already reached a certain
[?] degree of maturity. In that event, the restricted historical scope
of the Russian revolution can be considerably extended and the
possibility of entering the path of Socialist transformation will
arise.
"By framing its tactics in accordance with the view that, dur-
ing the whole period of the revolution, the Social-Democratic
Party will retain the position of extreme revolutionary opposition
to all the governments that may succeed one another in the course
of the revolution, Social-Democracy will best be able to prepare
itself to utilize political power if it falls [??] into its hands."
The basic idea expressed here is the same as that repeatedly formulat-
ed by the Vperyod, when it stated that we must not be afraid (as
is Martynov) of a complete victory for Social-Democracy in a democratic
revolution, i.e.,of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletari-
at and the peasantry, for such a victory will enable us to rouse Europe,
and the Socialist proletariat of Europe will then throw off the yoke of
the bourgeoisie, and in its turn help us to accomplish the Socialist revolu-
tion. But see how this idea is debased in the new laira-ites' rendering of
it. We shall not dwell on details — on the absurd assumption that power
could "fall" into the hands of a class-conscious party which considers seizure
of power harmful tactics; on the fact that in Europe the conditions for
Socialism have reached not a certain degree of maturity, but are already
mature; on the fact that our Party program does not speak of Socialist
reforms but only of a Socialist revolution. Let us take the principal and
TWO TACTICS OF S.-B. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 403
basic difference be^veen the idea as presented by the Vperyod and as pre-
sented in the resolution. The Vperyod set the revolutionary proletar-
iat of Russia an active aim: to win in the battle for democracy and to use
this victory for carrying the revolution into Europe. The resolution fails
to grasp this connection between our "decisive victory" (not in the new
Iskra sense) and the revolution in Europe, and therefore it speaks not
about the tasks of the proletariat, not about the prospects of its victory,
but about one of the possibilities in general: "in the event of the revolution
spreading. . . ." The Vperyod expressly and definitely indicated — and
this was incorporated in the resolution of the Third Congress of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party — just how "political power" can and
must "be utilized" in the interests of the proletariat, bearing in mind what
can be achieved immediately, at the given stage of social development,
and what must first be achieved as a democratic prerequisite of the strug-
gle for Socialism. Here, also, the resolution is hopelessly dragging at the
tail when it states: "will be able to prepare itself to utilize," but fails
to say in what way and how it will be able to prepare itself, and for what
sort of utilization. We have no doubt, for instance, that the new Iskra-ites
may be "able to prepare themselves to utilize" the leading position
in the Party; but the point is that so far their experience along the
lines of such utilization and the extent to which they are prepared for
this do not hold out much hope of possibility being transformed into
reality. . . .
The Vperyod quite definitely stated wherein lies the real "possibility
of retaining power" — namely, in the revolutionary-democratic dictator-
ship of the proletariat and the peasantry, in their joint mass strength,
which is capable of outweighing all the forces of counter-revolution,
in the inevitable concurrence of their interests in democratic changes.
Here, too, the resolution of the Conference gives us nothing positive,
merely evading the question. Surely the possibility of retaining power in
Russia must be determined by the composition of the social forces in
Russia itself, by the circumstances of the democratic revolution which is
now taking place in our country. A victory of the proletariat in Europe
(and it is a far cry from carrying the revolution into Europe to the victory
of the proletariat) would give rise to a desperate counter-revolutionary
struggle on the part of the Russian bourgeoisie — yet the resolution of the
new /s&ra-ites does not say a word about this counter-revolutionary force,
the importance of which has been appraised by the resolution of the Third
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. If in our fight for a republic and democracy
we could not rely upon the peasantry as well as on the proletariat, the pros-
pect of our "retaining power" would be hopeless. But if it is not hopeless,
if a "decisive victory over tsarism" opens up such a possibility, then we
must say so, we must actively call for the transformation of this possibil-
ity into reality and issue practical slogans not only for the contingency
of the revolution being carried over into Europe, but also for the purpose
26*
404 V. I. LENIN
of carrying it over. The reference made by the khvostiat Social-Democrats
to the "restricted historical scope of the Russian revolution" merely
serves to cover up their limited understanding of the aims of this demo-
cratic revolution and of the role of the proletariat as the vanguard in this
revolution!
One of the objections raised to the slogan calling for "the revolutionary-
democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" is that dic-
tatorship presupposes a "single will" (Iskra No. 95), and that there can
be no single will of the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie. This objec-
tion is not sound, for it is based on an abstract, "metaphysical" interpreta-
tion of the concept "single will." There may be a single will in one respect
and not a single will in another. The absence of singleness of purpose on
questions of Socialism and in the struggle for Socialism does not preclude
singleness of will in questions of democracy and in the struggle for a
republic. To forget this would be tantamount to forgetting the logical
and historical difference between a democratic revolution and a Social-
ist revolution. To forget this would be tantamount to forgetting the char-
acter of the democratic revolution as a revolution of the whole people:
if it is "of the whole people" it means that there is "singleness of will"
precisely in so far as this revolution satisfies the common needs and require-
ments of the whole people. Beyond the bounds of democracy there can
be no question of a single will of the proletariat and the peasant bourgeoi-
sie. Class struggle between them is inevitable; but it is in a democratic
republic that this struggle will be the most thorough-going and wide-
spread struggle of the people for Socialism. Like everything else in the
world, the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and
the peasantry has a past and a future. Its past is autocracy, serfdom, mon-
archy and privilege. In the struggle against this past, in the struggle against
counter-revolution, a "single will" of the proletariat and the peasantry
is possible, for there exists a unity of interests.
Its future is the struggle against private property, the struggle of the
wage worker against the employer, the struggle for Socialism. Here,
singleness of will is impossible. * Here our path lies not from the autocracy
to a republic, but from a petty-bourgeois democratic republic to Socialism.
Of course, in actual historical circumstances, the elements of the past
become interwoven with those of the future, the two paths cross. Wage
labour, with its struggle against private property, exists under the autoc-
racy as well; it exists in its incipient stage even under serfdom. But this
does not in the least prevent us from drawing a logical and historical
dividing line between the major stages of de\elo[ merit. We all draw a
* The development of capitalism, which is more widespread and rapid under
conditions of freedom, will inevitably put a speedy end to singleness of will; the
sooner counter-revolution and reaction are crushed, the sooner will the singleness
of will come to an end.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 405
distinction between bourgeois revolution and Socialist revolution, we all
absolutely insist on the necessity of drawing a strict line between them;
but can it be denied that in history individual, particular elements of
the one revolution and the other become interwoven? Have there not been
a number of Socialist movements and attempts at establishing Socialism
in the period of democratic revolutions in Europe? And will not the future
Socialist revolution in Europe still have to do a great deal that has been
left undone in the field of democracy?
A Social-Democrat must never for a moment forget that the proletari-
at will inevitably have to wage a class struggle for Socialism even against
the most democratic and republican bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.
This is beyond doubt. From this logically follows the absolute necessity
of a separate, independent and strictly class party of Social-Democracy.
From this follows the temporary nature of our tactics of "striking jointly"
with the bourgeoisie and the duty to keep a strict watch "over our ally, as
over an enemy," etc. All this is also beyond any doubt. But it would be
ridiculous and reactionary to deduce from this that we must forget, ignore
or neglect these tasks which, although transient and temporary, are vital
at the present time. The fight against the autocracy is a temporary and
transient task of the Socialists, but to ignore or neglect this task would
be tantamount to betraying Socialism and rendering a service to reaction.
The revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry is unquestionably only a transient, provisional aim of the
Socialists, but to ignore this aim in the period of a democratic revolution
would be plainly reactionary.
Concrete political aims must be set in concrete circumstances. All
things are relative, all things flow and are subject to change. The program
of the German Social-Democratic Party does not contain the demand for
a republic. In Germany the situation is such that for all practical pur-
poses this question can hardly be separated from the question of Socialism
(although even as regards Germany, Engels, in his comments on the draft
of the Erfurt Program of 1891, warned against belittling the importance
of a republic and of the struggle for a republic!). In the Russian Social-
Democratic Party the question of eliminating the demand for a republic
from its program or agitation has never even arisen, for in our country there
can be no talk even of an indissoluble connection between the question of a
republic and the question of Socialism. It was quite natural for a German
Social-Democrat of 1898 not to put the special question of a republic in
the forefront, and this evoked neither surprise nor condemnation. But a
German Social -Democrat who in 1848 would have left the question of
a republic in the shade would have been an outright traitor to the
revolution. There is no such thing as abstract truth. Truth is always
concrete.
The time will come when the struggle against the Russian autocracy
will be ended — the period of democratic revolution in Russia will be over;
406 V.I.LENIN
then it will be ridiculous to talk about "singleness of will" of the proletari-
at and the peasantry, about a democratic dictatorship, etc. When that
time comes we shall attend to the question of the Socialist dictatorship
of the proletariat directly and deal with it at greater length. But at pre-
sent the party of the advanced class cannot but strive most energetically
for a decisive victory of the democratic revolution over tsarism. And a
decisive, victory is no other than the revolutionary-democratic dictator-
ship of the proletariat and the peasantry.
11. A CURSORY COMPARISON BETWEEN SEVERAL OF THE
RESOLUTIONS OF THE THIRD CONGRESS OF THE R.S.D.L.P.
AND THOSE OF THE "CONFERENCE"
At the present juncture the tactical questions of the Social-Democratic
movement revolve around the question of a provisional revolutionary gov-
ernment. It is neither possible nor necessary to dwell in as great detail
on the other resolutions of the Conference. We shall confine ourselves
merely to indicating briefly a few points which confirm the difference in
principle, analysed above, between the tactical tendencies of the resolu-
tions of the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. and those of the Conference
resolutions.
Take the question of the attitude towards the tactics of the government
on the eve of the revolution. Once again you will find a comprehensive
answer to this question in one of the resolutions of the Third Congress of
the R.S.D.L.P. This resolution takes into consideration all the variegated
conditions and tasks of the particular moment: the exposure of the hy-
pocrisy of the government's concessions, the utilization of "travesties of
popular representation," the achievement by revolutionary means of the
urgent demands of the working class (the principal one being the demand
for an eight-hour working day), and, finally, resistance to the Black-
Hundreds. In the Conference resolutions this question is divided up and
spread over several sections: "resistance to the dark forces of reaction"
is mentioned only in the preamble of the resolution on the attitude to
other parties. Participation in elections to representative bodies is consid-
ered separately from the question of "compromises" between tsarism
and the bourgeoisie. Instead of calling for the achievement of an eight-
hour working day by revolutionary means, a special resolution, with the
big-sounding title "On the Economic Struggle," merely repeats (after
high-flown and stupid phrases about "the central place occupied by the
labour question in the public life of Russia") the old slogan of agitation
for "the legislative institution of an eight-hour working day." The inade-
quacy and the belatedness of this slogan at the present time are too obvious
to require proof.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 407
The question of open political action. The Third Congress takes into
consideration the impending radical change in our activity* Secret ac-
tivity and the development of the secret apparatus must on no account
be abandoned: this would be playing into the hands of the police and be
of the utmost advantage to the government. But at the same time we can-
not start too soon thinking about open action as well. Expedient forms
of such action and, consequently, a special apparatus — less secret — must be
prepared immediately for this purpose. The legal and semi-legal societies
must be made use of with a view to transforming them, as far as possible,
into bases of the future open Social-Democratic Labour Party in Russia.
Here too the Conference divides up the question, and fails to issue
any slogans that would encompass it as a whole. There bobs up as a sepa-
rate point the ridiculous instruction given to the Organization Commission
to see to the "placing" of its legally functioning publicists. There is the
wholly absurd decision to subordinate to its influence "the democratic
newspapers that set themselves the aim of rendering assistance to the
working-class movement." This is the professed aim of all our legal liberal
newspapers, nearly all of which follow the trend of the Osvobozhdeniye.
Why should not the editors of the Iskra make a start themselves by carrying
out their own advice and giving us an example of how to subject the Osvo-
bozhdeniye to Social-Democratic influence?. . . In place of the slogan calling
for the utilization of the legally existing unions for the purpose of establish-
ing bases for the Party, we are given, first, private advice about the
"trade" unions only (that all Party members must join them) and, secondly,
advice to guide "the revolutionary organizations of the workers" = "organi-
zations not officially constitu ted" = "revolutionary workers1 clubs," How
these "clubs" come to be classed as unofficially constituted organi-
zations, what these "clubs" really are — goodness only knows. Instead of
definite and clear instructions from a supreme Party body, we have some
jottings of ideas and the rough drafts of publicists. We get no complete
picture of the beginning of the Party's transition to an entirely new basis
in all its work.
The "peasant question" was approached altogether differently by the
Party Congress and by the Conference. The Congress drew up a resolution
on the "attitude to the peasant movement," the Conference on "work
among the peasants." In the one case prime importance is attached to the
task of guiding the widespread revolutionary democratic movement in the
general national interests of the fight against tsarism. In the other in-
stance, the question is reduced to mere "work" among a particular section
of society. In the one case, a central practical slogan for our agitation is
advanced, calling for the immediate organization of revolutionary peasant
committees in order to carry out all the democratic changes. In the other,
a "demand for the organization of committees" is to be presented to
a constituent assembly. Why must we wait for this Constituent Assembly?
Will it really be constituent? Will it be stable without a preliminary
408 V. I. LENIN
or simultaneous establishment of revolutionary peasant committees?
All these questions are ignored by the Conference. All its decisions reflect
the same general idea which we have traced — namely, that in the bourgeois
revolution we must do only our special work, without setting ourselves
the aim of leading the entire democratic movement and of accomplishing
this independently. Just as the Economists constantly harped on the idea
that the Social-Democrats should concern themselves with the economic
struggle/ leaving it to the liberals to take care of the political struggle,
so too the new Iskra-ites keep harping in all their discussions on the idea
that we should creep into a modest corner out of the way of the bour-
geois revolution, leaving it to the bourgeoisie to do the active work of
carrying out the revolution.
Finally, we cannot but note also the resolution on the attitude toward
other parties. The resolution of the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
speaks of exposing all the limitations and inadequacies of the bourgeois
movement for emancipation, without entertaining the naive idea of enumer-
ating every possible instance of such limitation from Congress to Congress
or of drawing a line of distinction between bad bourgeois and good bour-
geois. The Conference, repeating the mistake made by Starovyer, carries
on a persistent search for such a line, developing the famous "litmus paper"
theory. Starovyer started from a very good idea: to put more exacting terms
to the bourgeoisie. Only he forgot that any attempt to separate beforehand
the bourgeois democrats who are worthy of approval, agreements, etc.,
from those who are unworthy leads to a "formula" which is immediately
thrown overboard by the course of events and which introduces confusion
into the proletarian class consciousness. The emphasis is shifted from real
unity in the struggle to declarations, promises, slogans. Starovyer consid-
ered that "universal and equal suffrage, direct elections and secret ballot"
was the radical slogan that would serve this purpose. Not even two years
elapsed, and the "litmus paper" proved its worthless ness, the slogan cal-
ling for universal suffrage was adopted by the Osvobozhdentsi, who not
only came no closer to Social-Democracy as a result of this, but, on the con-
trary, tried to mislead the workers and divert them from Socialism by
means of this very slogan.
Now the new Jsfcra-ites are setting "terms" even "more exacting,"
are "demanding" from the enemies of tsarism "energetic and unequivocal
[1?] support of every determined action of the organized proletariat,"
etc., going so far as to include "active participation in the self-armament
of the people." The line has been drawn much further — but nonetheless
this line has already become outdated once more, having immediately proved
worthless. Why, for instance, is there no slogan calling for a republic?
How is it that the Social-Democrats "demand" all manner of things
from the bourgeois democrats in the interest of "relentless revolutionary
war against all the props of the system of social estates and the monarchy"
except a fight for a republic?
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 409
That this question is not mere captiousness, that the mistake of the
new /«fera-ites is of most vital political significance is proved by the
"Russian Liberation League" (see Proletary No. 4).* These "enemies of
tsarism" will fully satisfy all the "requirements" of the new Iskra-ites.
And yet we have shown that the spirit of the Osvobozhdeniye reigns in
the program (or lack of program) of this "Russian Liberation League"
and that the Osvobozhdentei can easily take it in tow. The Conference,
however, declares in the concluding section of the resolution that "Social-
Democracy will continue to come out as of old against the hypocritical
friends of the people, against all those political parties which, though they
display a liberal and democratic banner, refuse to render genuine
support to the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat." The "Russian
Liberation League," far from refusing this support, offers it most
insistently. Is that a guarantee that the leaders of this League are
not "hypocritical friends of the people," even if they are Osvobozh-
dentsil
You see: by inventing "terms" beforehand and presenting "demands"
which are ludicrous by reason of their grim impotence, the new Iskra-
ites immediately put themselves in a ridiculous position. Their terms and
demands immediately prove inadequate when it comes to gauging living
realities. Their quest for formulae is hopeless, for there is no formula which
can be used to detect all the various manifestations of hypocrisy, incon-
sistency and limitations of bourgeois democrats. It is not a matter of
"litmus paper," of forms, or written and printed demands, nor is it a mat-
ter of drawing beforehand a line of distinction between hypocritical and
not hypocritical "friends of the people"; it is a matter of real unity in the
struggle, of unabating criticism on the part of Social-Democrats of every
"uncertain" step taken by bourgeois democrats. What is needed for a
"genuine consolidation of all the social forces interested in democratic
change" is not the "points"over which the Conference laboured so assiduous-
ly and so vainly, but the ability to put forward genuinely revolutionary
slogans. For this we need slogans that will raise the revolutionary and
republican bourgeoisie to the level of the proletariat instead of de-
preciating the aims of the proletariat to the level of the monarchist bour-
geoisie. For this the most resolute participation in the uprising
is necessary, instead of sophist evasions of the urgent task of armed
insurrection.
* Proletary No. 4, which appeared on June 17 [4], 1905, contained a lengthy
article entitled "A New Revolutionary Labour League." The article gives the
contents cf the appeals issued by this league which assumed the name of "Russian
Liberation League" and which set itself the aim of convening a constituent assembly
through the medium of an armed uprising. Further, the article defines the attitude
of the Social-Democrats to such non-Party leagues. To what extent this league
made itself felt, and what its fate was in the revolution is absolutely unknown
to us. (Author's note to the 1908 edition. — Ed.)
410 V. I. LENIN
12. WILL THE SWEEP OF THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION BE
DIMINISHED IF THE BOURGEOISIE RECOILS FROM IT?
The foregoing lines were already written when we received a copy of
the resolutions adopted by the Caucasian Conference of the new Jafcra-ites,
published by the Iskra. Even if we tried we could not have thought of
anything better pour la bonne bouche (for dessert) than this material.
The Editorial Board of the Iskra quite justly remarks:
"On the fundamental question of tactics, the Caucasian Confer-
ence arrived at a decision analogous" (in truth!) "to the one adopt-
ed by the All- Russian Conference" (i.e., of the new /sfcra-ites). . . .
"The question of the attitude of Social-Democracy towards a pro-
visional revolutionary government has been settled by the Caucasian
comrades in the spirit of most outspoken opposition to the new meth-
od advocated by the Vperyod group and the delegates of the so-
called Congress who joined it. ... It must be admitted that the
tactics of the proletarian party in a bourgeois revolution have
been very aptly formulated by the Conference."
What is true is true. No one could have given a more "apt" formula-
tion of the fundamental error of the new /s&ra-ites. We shall quote this
formulation in full, indicating in parentheses first the blossoms and then
the fruit presented at the end.
Here is the resolution of the Caucasian Conference of new Iskra-ites
on a provisional revolutionary government:
"Whereas we consider it to be our task to take advantage of
the revolutionary situation to render more profound" (of course!
They should have added: "d la Martynov"!) "the Social-Demo-
cratic consciousness of the proletariat" (only to render the conscious-
ness more profound, and not to establish a republic? What a "pro-
found" conception of the revolution!) "and in order to secure for
the Party complete freedom ) to criticize the nascent bourgeois-
state system" (it is not our business to secure a republic 1 Our
business is only to secure freedom of criticism. Anarchist ideas
give rise to anarchist language: "bourgeois-state" system!), "the
Conference declares against the formation of a Social-Democratic
provisional government and joining such a government" (recall
the resolution passed by the Bakuninists ten months before the
Spanish revolution and referred to by Engels: see Proletary No. 3),
"and considers it to be the most expedient course to exercise pres-
sure from without" (from below and not from above) "upon the
bourgeois provisional government in order to secure a feasible meas-
ure" (?1) "of democratization of the state system. The Conference
believes that the formation of a provisional government by Social-
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 411
Democrats, or their joining such a government, would lead, on the
one hand, to the masses of the proletariat becoming disappointed
in the Social-Democratic Party and abandoning it because the So-
cial-Democrats, in spite of the fact that they had seized power,
would not be able to satisfy the pressing needs of the working class,
including the establishment of Socialism" (a republic is not a pres-
sing needl The authors, in their innocence, do not notice that they
are speaking a sheerly anarchist language, as if they were repu-
diating participation in bourgeois revolutions!), "and, on the other
hand, will cause the bourgeois classes to recoil from the revo-
lution and thus diminish its sweep."
That is the point. That is where anarchist ideas become interwoven
(as is always the case among the West European Bernsteinians also) with
the sheerest opportunism. Just think: not to join a provisional government
because this will cause the bourgeoisie to recoil from the revolution and will
thus diminish the sweep of the revolution! Here, indeed, we have before
us the new Iskra philosophy in its complete, pure and consistent form: the
revolution is a bourgeois revolution, therefore we must bow down to bour-
geois philistinism and make way for it. If we were guided, even in part, even
for a moment, by the consideration that our participation might cause
the bourgeoisie to recoil, we would simply be yielding precedence in the
revolution entirely to the bourgeois classes. We would thereby be placing
the proletariat entirely under the tutelage of the bourgeoisie (while re-
taining for ourselves complete "freedom of criticism"!!), compelling
the proletariat to be meek and mild so as not to cause the bourgeoisie to
recoil. We would emasculate the immediate needs of the proletariat,
namely, its political needs — which the Economists and their epigones have
never thoroughly understood — so as not to cause the bourgeoisie to recoil.
We would completely abandon the field of revolutionary struggle for the
achievement of democracy to the extent required by the proletariat, for
the field of bargaining with the bourgeoisie, betraying our principles,
betraying the revolution in order thereby to purchase the bourgeoisie's
voluntary consent ("that it might not recoil").
In two brief lines, the Caucasian new Iskra-ites managed to express the
quintessence of the tactics of betraying the revolution and of converting
the proletariat into a paltry appendage of the bourgeois classes. The ten-
dency, which we traced above to the mistakes of the new /sfcra-ites,
now stands out before us as a clear and definite principle, viz., to drag at
the tail of the monarchist bourgeoisie. Since the establishment of a re-
public would cause (and is already causing: Mr. Struve, for example)
the bourgeoisie to recoil, therefore down with the fight for a republic.
Since any resolute and consistent democratic demand on the part of the
proletariat always and everywhere in the world causes the bourgeoisie
to recoil, therefore, hide in your lairs, comrade workers, act only from
412 V. I. LENIN
without, do not dream of using the instruments and weapons of the "bour-
geois state" system in the interests of the revolution, and reserve for your-
selves "freedom to criticize"!
Here the fundamental fallaciousness of their understanding of the
term "bourgeois revolution" has come to the surface. The Martynov or
new Iskra "understanding" of this term leads straight to a betrayal
of the cause of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie.
Those who have forgotten the old Economism, those who do not study
it or remember it, will find it difficult to understand the present off-shoot
of Economism. Recall the Bernsteinian Credo. From "purely proletarian"
views and programs, people arrived at the conclusion: we, the Social-
Democrats, must concern ourselves with economics, with the real cause
of labour, with freedom to criticize all political chicanery, with render-
ing Social-Democratic work really more profound. They, the liberals, can
concern themselves with politics. God save us from dropping into "revo-
lutionism": that will cause the bourgeoisie to recoil. Those who read the
whole Credo over again or the Supplement to No. 9 of the Eabochaya Myal
(September 1899), will be able to follow this entire line of reasoning.
Today we have the same thing, only on a large scale, applied to an ap-
praisal of the whole of the "great" Russian revolution — alas, already
vulgarized and reduced to a travesty beforehand by the theoreticians
of orthodox philistinism! We, the Social-Democrats, must concern
ourselves with freedom to criticize, with rendering class consciousness
more profound, with action from without. They, the bourgeois classes,
must have freedom to act, a free field for revolutionary (read: liberal)
leadership, freedom to put through "reforms*' from above.
These vulgarizers of Marxism have never pondered over what Marx
said about the need of substituting the criticism of weapons for the
weapon of criticism. They take the name of Marx in vain, while in actual
fact they are drawing up resolutions on tactics wholly in the spirit of
the Frankfurt bourgeois windbags, who freely criticized absolutism and
rendered democratic consciousness more profound, but failed to under-
stand that a time of revolution is a time of action, of action both from
above and from below. Having converted Marxism into pedantry, they
have made the ideology of the advanced, most determined and energetic
revolutionary class the ideology of its most undeveloped strata, which
shrink from the difficult revolutionary-democratic tasks and leave it to
Messieurs Struves to take care of these democratic tasks.
If the bourgeois classes recoil from the revolution because the Social-
Democrats join the revolutionary government, they will thereby "diminish
the sweep" of the revolution.
Listen to this, Russian workers: The sweep of the revolution will be
mightier if it is carried out by Messrs, the Struves who have not been
frightened away by the Social-Democrats and who want, not victory over
tsarism, but to come to terms with it. The sweep of the revolution will
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 413
be mightier if, of the two possible outcomes which we have outlined above
the first eventuates, i.e., if the monarchist bourgeoisie comes to terms
with the autocracy concerning a "constitution" d la Shipovl
Social-Democrats who write such disgraceful things in resolutions in-
tended for the guidance of the whole Party, or who approve of such
"apt" resolutions, are so blinded by their pedantry, which has utterly
corroded the living spirit of Marxism, that they do not see how these re-
solutions convert all their other fine words into mere phrasemongering. Take
any of their articles in the Iskra, or take even the notorious pamphlet
written by our celebrated Martynov — you will read there about insur-
rection of the people, about carrying the revolution to completion, about
striving to rely upon the common people in the fight against the incon-
sistent bourgeoisie. But then all these excellent things become miserable
phrasemongering immediately you acceptor commend the idea about "the
sweep of the revolution" being "diminished" as a result of the alienation
of the bourgeoisie. One of two things, gentlemen: either we, together,
with the people, must strive to carry out the revolution and win
a complete victory over tsarism in spite of the inconsistent, self-seek-
ing and cowardly bourgeoisie, or we do not accept this "in spite of," we
stand in fear lest the bourgeoisie "recoil" from the revolution in which
case we betray the proletariat and the people to the bourgeoisie —
to the inconsistent, self-seeking and cowardly bourgeoisie.
Don't try to misinterpret what I have said. Don't start howling that
you are being charged with deliberate treachery. No, you have constantly
been crawling and have at last crawled into the mire just as unconsciously
as the Economists of old, drawn inexorably and irrevocably down the in-
clined plane of making Marxism "more profound" to anti-revolutionary,
soulless and lifeless "philosophizing."
Have you ever considered, gentlemen, what the real social forces that
determine the "sweep of the revolution" are? Let us leave aside the forces
of foreign politics, of international combinations, which have turned
out very favourably for us at the present time, but which we all leave out
of our discussion, and quite rightly so, inasmuch as it is a question of
the internal forces of Russia. Look at the internal social forces. Aligned
against the revolution are the autocracy, the imperial court, the police,
the government officials, the army and the handful of the elite. The greater
the indignation of the people becomes, the less reliable become the troops,
and the more the government officials waver. Moreover, the bourgeoisie
in general and on the whole is now in favour of the revolution, is zealously
making speeches about liberty, holding forth more and more frequently
in the name of the people, and even in the name of the revolution. * But
* Of interest in this connection is Mr. Struve's open letter to Jaures, recently
published by the latter in VHumaniti and by the former in the Otvobozhdeniye
No. 72.
414 V. I. LENIN
we Marxists all know from theory and from daily and hourly observation
of our liberals, Zemstvo-ists and Osvobozhdentsi that the bourgeoisie is
inconsistent, self-seeking and cowardly in its support of the revolution.
The bourgeoisie, in the mass, will inevitably turn towards counter-revo-
lution, towards the autocracy, against the revolution and against the people,
immediately its narrow, selfish interests are met, immediately it "recoils"
from consistent democracy (and it is already recoiling from it\). There
remains the "people," that is, the proletariat and the peasantry. The prole-
tariat alone can be relied on to march to the end, for its goal lies far beyond
the democratic revolution. That is why the proletariat fights in the front
ranks for a republic and contemptuously rejects silly and unworthy advice
to take care not to frighten away the bourgeoisie. The peasantry includes
a great number of semi-proletarian as well as petty-bourgeois elements.
This causes it also to be unstable and compels the proletariat to unite in
a strictly class party. But the instability of the peasantry differs radically
from the instability of the bourgeoisie, for at the present time the peasant-
ry is interested not so much in the absolute preservation of private pro-
perty as in the confiscation of the landed estates, one of the principal
forms of private property. While this does not cause the peasantry to be-
come Socialist or cease to be petty-bourgeois, the peasantry is capable
of becoming a wholehearted and most radical adherent of the democratic
revolution. The peasantry will inevitably become such if only the pro-
gress of revolutionary events, which is enlightening it, is not interrupted
too soon by the treachery of the bourgeoisie and the defeat of the pro-
letariat. Subject to this condition, the peasantry will inevitably become
a bulwark of the revolution and the republic, for only a completely vic-
torious revolution can give the peasantry everything in the sphere of ag-
rarian reform^ — everything that the peasants desire, of which they dream,
and of which they truly stand in need (not for the abolition of capitalism
as the "Socialist-Revolutionaries" imagine, but) in order to emerge from
the mire of semi-serfdom, from the gloom of oppression and servitude, in
order to improve their living conditions as much as it is possible to im-
prove them under the system of commodity production.
Moreover, the peasantry is drawn to the revolution not only by the
prospect of radical agrarian reform but by its general and permanent
interests. Even in the struggle with the proletariat the peasantry stands
in need of democracy, for only a democratic system is capable of giving
exact expression to its interests and of ensuring its predominance as the
mass, the majority. The more enlightened the peasantry becomes (and
since the war with Japan it is becoming enlightened much more rapidly
than those who are accustomed to measuring enlightenment by the school
standard suspect), the more consistently and determinedly will it favour
a thoroughgoing democratic revolution; for, unlike the bourgeoisie, it
has nothing to fear from the supremacy of the people, but, on the contrary,
can only gain by it. A democratic republic will become the ideal of the
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 415
peasantry as soon as it begins to free itself from its naive monarchist^
because the deliberate monarchism of the bourgeois brokers (with an
upper chamber, etc.) implies for the peasantry the same disfranchise-
ment and the same downtroddenness and ignorance as it suffers from today,
only slightly glossed over with the varnish of European constitution-
alism.
That is why the bourgeoisie as a class naturally and inevitably strives
to come under the wing of the liberal-monarchist party, while the peasant-
ry, in the mass, strives to come under the leadership of the revolutionary
and republican party. That is why the bourgeoisie is incapable of carry-
ing the democratic revolution to its consummation, while the peasant-
ry is capable of doing so, and we must exert all our efforts to help it to
do so.
It may be objected: but there is no need to prove this, this is all ABC;
all Social-Democrats understand this perfectly well. But that is not so.
Those who can talk about "the sweep" of the revolution being "dimin-
ished" because the bourgeoisie will fall away from it do not understand this.
Such people simply repeat the words of our agrarian program by rote with-
out understanding their meaning, for otherwise they would not be fright-
ened by the concept of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the pro-
letariat and the peasantry, which follows inevitably from the entire Marx-
ian philosophy and from our program; otherwise they would not restrict
the sweep of the great Russian revolution to the limits to which the bour-
geoisie is prepared to go. Such people defeat their abstract Marxian revo-
lutionary phrases by their concrete anti-Marxian and anti-revolutionary
resolutions.
Those who really understand the role of the peasantry in a victorious
Russian revolution would not dream of saying that the sweep of the revo-
lution would be diminished if the bourgeoisie recoiled from it. For, as a
matter of fact, the Russian revolution will begin to assume its real sweep,
will really assume the widest revolutionary sweep possible in the epoch
of bourgeois-democratic revolution, only when the bourgeoisie recoils
from it and when the masses of the peasantry come out as active revolution-
aries side by side with the proletariat. In order that it may be consistently
carried to its conclusion, our democratic revolution must rely on such forces
as are capable of paralysing the inevitable inconsistency of the bour-
geoisie (i.e., capable precisely of "causing it to recoil from the revolution,"
which the Caucasian adherents of Iskra fear so much because of their lack
of judgment).
416 V. I. LENIN
crush by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyse the instability
of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie. Such are the tasks of the
proletariat, which the new /s&ra-ites always present so narrowly in their
arguments and resolutions about the scope of the revolution.
One circumstance, however, must not be forgotten, although it is fre-
quently lost sight of in discussions about the "sweep" of the revolution.
It must not be forgotten that the point at issue is not what difficulties
this problem presents, but what is the road along which we must seek
and attain its solution. The point is not whether it is difficult or easy to
make the sweep of the revolution mighty and invincible, but how we must
act in order to make this sweep more powerful. It is precisely on the fun-
damental nature of our activity, on the direction which it should take, that
our views differ. We emphasize this because careless and unscrupulous peo-
ple too frequently confuse two different questions, namely, the question
of the direction in which the road leads, i.e., the selection of one of two
different roads, and the question of the ease with which the goal can be
reached, or of how near the goal is on the given road.
We have not dealt here with this last question at all because it has not
evoked any disagreement or divergency in the Party. But it goes without
saying that the question is extremely important in itself and deserves the
most serious attention of all Social-Democrats. It would be a piece of un-
pardonable optimism to forget the difficulties which accompany the task
of drawing into the movement not only the mass of the working class, but
of the peasantry as well. These difficulties have more than once been the
rock against which all the efforts to carry a democratic revolution to com-
pletion have been wrecked. And above all it was the inconsistent and self-
seeking bourgeoisie which triumphed, because it both "made capital" by
way of securing monarchist protection against the people, and "preserved
the virginity" of liberalism ... or of the Osbobozhdeniye trend. But a
thing may be difficult without being unattainable. What is important is to
be convinced that the path chosen is the correct one, and this conviction
will multiply a hundredfold the revolutionary energy and revolutionary
enthusiasm which can perform miracles.
How deep is the gulf that divides Social-Democrats today on the ques-
tion of what path to choose can be seen at once by comparing the Caucasian
resolution of the new /a&ra-ites with the resolution of the Third Congress of
the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The Congress resolution
says that the bourgeoisie is inconsistent, that it will invariably try to de-
prive us of the gains of the revolution. Therefore, make energetic prepara-
tions for the fight, comrades and fellow workers! Arm yourselves, win the
peasantry to your side I We shall not surrender our revolutionary conquests
to the self-seeking bourgeoisie without a fight. The resolution of the Cauca-
sian new Is&ra-ites says: The bourgeoisie is inconsistent, it may recoil from
the revolution. Therefore, comrades and fellow workers, please do not
think of joining a provisional government, for, if you do, the bourgeoi-
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 417
sie will surely recoil, and the sweep of the revolution will thereby be
diminished!
One side says: push the revolution forward, to its consummation, in spie
of the resistance or the passivity of the inconsistent bourgeoisie.
The other side says: do not think of carrying the revolution to comple-
tion independently, for if you do, the inconsistent bourgeoisie will recoil
from it.
Are these not two diametrically opposite paths? Is it not obvious that
one set of tactics absolutely excludes the other? Is it not clear that the
first tactics are the only correct tactics of revolutionary Social-Democracy,
while the second are in fact purely Osvobozkdeniye tactics?
13. CONCLUSION. DARE WE WIN?
People who are superficially acquainted with the state of affairs in the
ranks of Russian Social-Democracy, or who judge by appearances without
knowing the whole history of our internal Party struggle since the days of
Economism, very often dismiss even the tactical disagreements which have
now become crystallized, especially after the Third Congress, by arguing
that there are two natural, inevitable and quite reconcilable trends in every
Social-Democratic movement. One side, they say, lays special emphasis on
the ordinary, current, everyday work, on the necessity of developing prop-
aganda and agitation, of preparing forces, deepening the movement, etc.,
while the other side lays emphasis on the militant, general political, revo-
lutionary tasks of the movement, pointing out the necessity of armed in-
surrection and of advancing the slogans: for a revolutionary-democratic
dictatorship, for a provisional revolutionary government. Neither side
should exaggerate, they say; extremes are bad, both here and there (and,
generally speaking, everywhere in the world), etc., etc.
But the cheap truths of worldly (and "political" in quotation marks)
wisdom, which are undoubtedly contained in such arguments, too often
cover up a failure to understand the urgent and acute needs of the Party.
Take the present differences among the Russian Social-Democrats on the
question of tactics. Of course, the special emphasis laid on the everyday, rou-
tine aspect of the work, such as we observe in the new lakra -ite arguments
about tactics, could not in itself present any changer and would not give rise
to any difference of opinion regarding tactical slogans. But the moment you
compare the resolutions of the Third Congress of the Russian Social-Demo-
cratic Labour Party with the resolutions of the Conference this difference
becomes strikingly obvious.
What, then, is the trouble? The trouble is that, in the first place, it is
not enough to point abstractly to the two trends in the movement and to the
harmfulness of extremes. You must know concretely what the given move-
27—686
418 V. I. LENIN
ment is suffering from at the given time, what constitutes the real political
danger to the Party at the present time. Secondly, you must know what real
political forces are profiting by this or that tactical slogan — or perhaps
the absence of this or that slogan. To listen to the new jfe&ra-ites, one would
arrive at the conclusion that the Social-Democratic Party is faced with
the danger of throwing overboard propaganda and agitation, the economic
struggle -and criticism of bourgeois democracy, of being inordinately ab-
sorbed in military preparations, armed attacks, the seizure of power, etc.
Actually, however, real danger is threatening the Party from an entirely
different quarter. Anyone who is more or less closely familiar with the state
of the movement, anyone who follows it carefully and intelligently, cannot
fail to see the ridiculous side of the new Iskra's fears. The entire work of
the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party has already been fully mould-
ed into solid, immutable forms which absolutely guarantee that our main
attention will be fixed on propaganda and agitation, impromptu and mass
meetings, the distribution of leaflets and pamphlets, assisting in the eco-
nomic struggle and championing the slogans of that struggle. There is not a
single committee of the Party, not a single district committee, not a single
central delegates ' meeting or a single factory group where ninety-nine per
cent of all the attention, energy and time are not always and constantly
devoted to these functions, which have become firmly established ever
since the middle of the nineties of the last century. Only those who are
entirely unfamiliar with the movement do not know this. Only very naive
or ill-informed people can take the new Iskra-ites seriously when they,
with an air of great importance, repeat stale truths.
The fact is that not only is no excessive zeal displayed among us with re-
gard to the tasks of insurrection, to the general political slogans and to the
matter of leading the popular revolution in its entirety, but, on the contra-
ry, it is backwardness in this very respect that stands out most strikingly,
constitutes our weakest spot and a real danger to the movement, which may
degenerate and in some places is degenerating into a movement no longer
revolutionary in deeds, but only in words. Among the many hundreds of
organizations, groups and circles carrying on the work of the Party you will
not find a single one which has not carried on, from its very inception, the
kind of everyday work about which the wiseacres of the new Iskra now talk
with the air of people who have discovered new truths. On the other hand,
you will find only an insignificant percentage of groups and circles that have
understood the tasks which an armed uprising entails, have begun to carry
them out, and have realized the necessity of leading the popular revolution
against tsarism, the necessity of advancing for that purpose certain defi-
nite progressive slogans and no other.
We are incredibly behind in our progressive and genuinely revolutionary
tasks, in very many instances we have not even become conscious of them;
here and there we have failed to notice the strengthening of the revolution-
ary bourgeois democracy owing to our backwardness in this respect. But
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 419
the writers in the new Iskra, turning their backs on the course of events
and on the requirements of the times, keep repeating insistently: Don't for-
get the old! Don't let yourselves be carried away by the new! This is the
principal and unvarying leitmotif of all the important resolutions of the
Conference; whereas in the Congress resolutions you just as unvaryingly
read: while confirming the old (and without stopping to chew it over and
over, for the very reason that it is old and has already been settled and re-
corded in literature, in resolutions and by experience) we put forward a
new task, draw attention to it, issue a new slogan, and demand that the
genuinely revolutionary Social-Democrats immediately set to work to
put it into effect.
That is how matters really stand with regard to the question of the two
trends in Social-Democratic tactics. The revolutionary period has called
forth new tasks, which only the totally blind can fail to see. And some So-
cial-Democrats unhesitatingly recognize these tasks and place them on the
order of the day, declaring: the armed uprising brooks no delay, prepare
yourselves for it immediately and energetically, remember that it is indis-
pensable for a decisive victory, issue the slogans calling for a republic, for
a provisional government, for a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of
the proletariat and the peasantry. Others, however, draw back, mark time,
write prefaces instead of giving slogans; instead of pointing out the new
while confirming the old, they chew on this old tediously and at great
length, inventing pretexts to avoid the new, unable to determine the re-
quisites for a decisive victory or to issue the slogans which alone are in
line with the striving to attain complete victory.
The political result of this khvostism stares us in the face. The fairy-tale
about a rapprochement between the "Majority "of the Russian Social-Dem-
ocratic Labour Party and the revolutionary bourgeois democracy remains
a fable which has not been confirmed by a single political fact, by a single
important resolution of the "Bolsheviks" or a single act of the Third Con-
gress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. On the other hand,
the opportunist, monarchist bourgeoisie, as represented by the Owobozh-
deniye, has for a long time past been welcoming the "principles" of new
Jafcra-ism and now it is actually running its mill with the grist which the
latter bring, is adopting their catchwords and "ideas" directed against "se-
crecy" and "riots," against exaggerating the "technical" side of the rev-
olution, against openly proclaiming the slogan calling for an armed up-
rising, against the "revolutionism" of extreme demands, etc., etc. The re-
solution of a whole conference of "Menshevik" Social-Democrats in the
Caucasus and the endorsement of that resolution by the editors of the new
Iskra sums it all up politically in an unmistakable way; the bourgeoisie
might recoil if the proletariat takes part in a revolutionary-democratic
dictatorship! This sums it up in a nutshell. This gives the finishing touch
to the transformation of the proletariat into an appendage of the monarch-
ist bourgeoisie. The political meaning of the khvostism of the new Iskra is
420 V, L LENIN
thereby proved in fact, not by a casual declaration of some individual, but
by a resolution especially endorsed by a whole trend.
Anyone who ponders over these facts will understand the real signifi-
cance of the stock reference to the two sides and the two trends in the So-
cial-Democratic movement. For a study of these trends on a large scale,take
Bernsteinism. The Bernsteinians have been dinning into our ears inexactly
the same way that it is they who understand the true needs of the proletariat,
the tasks connected with the growth of its forces, with rendering the en-
tire activity more profound, with preparing the elements of a new society,
with propaganda and agitation! Bernstein says: we demand a frank recog-
nition of what is. And thus he sanctions a "movement" without "final aims,"
sanctions defensive tactics only, preaches the tactics of fear "lest the bour-
geoisie recoil." The Bernsteinians also raised an outcry against the "Jaco-
binism" of the revolutionary Social-Democrats, against the "publicists"
who fail to understand the "initiative of the workers," etc., etc. In reality,
as everyone knows, the revolutionary Social-Democrats never even thought
of abandoning the everyday, petty work, the mustering of forces, etc.,
etc. All they demanded was a clear understanding of the final aim, a clear
presentation of the revolutionary tasks ; they wanted to raise the semi-pro-
letariat and lower middle classes to the revolutionary level of the prole-
tariat, not to debase the revolutionary spirit of the latter to the level of
opportunist considerations such as "lest the bourgeoisie recoil." Perhaps
the most graphic expression of this rift between the intellectual opportunist
wing and the proletarian revolutionary wing of the Party was the question:
diirfen mr siegen? "Dare we win?" Is it permissible for us to win? Would not
victory be dangerous to us? Ought we to win? This question, which seems
so strange at first sight, was raised, however, and had to be raised, because
the opportunists were afraid of victory, were frightening the proletariat
away from it, were predicting that trouble would come of it, were ridicul-
ing the slogans bluntly calling for victory.
The same fundamental division between the intellectual-opportunist
trend and the proletarian- revolutionary trend exists also among us, with
the very material difference, however, that here we are faced with the ques-
tion of a democratic revolution, and not of a Socialist revolution. The ques-
tion "dare we win?" which is so absurd at first sight, has been raised among
us also. It was raised by Martynov in his Two Dictatorships, in which he
prophesied dire misfortune if we make effective preparations for and success-
fully carry out an uprising. The question has been raised in all the new
Iskra literature dealing with a provisional revolutionary government, and,
in this connection, all the time persistent though futile efforts have been
made to liken Millerand's participation in a bourgeois-opportunist gov-
ernment to Varlin's participation in a petty-bourgeois revolutionary gov-
ernment. It is embodied in a resolution: "lest the bourgeoisie recoil."
And although Kautsky, for instance, now tries to wax ironical about our
disputes concerning a provisional revolutionary government, and says that
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 421
it is like dividing the skin of a bear before the bear has been killed, this
irony only proves that even intelligent and revolutionary Social-Democrats
are liable to put their foot in it when they talk about something they know
of only by hearsay. German Social-Democracy is still a long way from kill-
ing its bear (carrying out a Socialist revolution), but the dispute as to
whether we "dare" kill the bear was of enormous importance from the point
of view of principles and of practical politics. Russian Social-Democrats
are still far from being strong enough to "kill their bear" (to carry out a
democratic revolution), but the question as to whether we "dare" kill
it is of extreme importance for the whole future of Russia and for the
future of Russian Social-Democracy. An army cannot be energetically
and successfully mustered and led unless we are sure that we "dare"
win.
Take our old Economists. They too raised an outcry that their opponents
were conspirators, Jacobins (see Babocheye Dyelo, especially No. 10, and
Martynov's speech in the debate on the program at the Second Congress),
that by plunging into politics they were divorcing themselves from the
masses, that they were losing sight of the fundamentals of the labour move-
ment, ignoring the initiative of the workers, etc., etc. In reality these sup-
porters of "the initiative of the workers" were opportunist intellectuals
who tried to foist on the workers their own narrow and philistine conception
of the tasks of the proletariat. In reality the opponents of Economism, as
everyone can see from the old Iskra, did not neglect or push into the back-
ground any of the phases of Social-Democratic work, nor did they forget the
economic struggle in the slightest; but at the same time they were able to
present the urgent and immediate political tasks in their full scope, and
to oppose the transformation of the party of the workers into an "economic"
appendage of the liberal bourgeoisie.
The Economists had learned by rote that politics are based on economics
and "understood" this to mean that the political struggle should be reduced
to an economic struggle. The new Iskra-ites have learned by rote that
the economic basis of the democratic revolution is the bourgeois revolution,
and "understood" this to mean that the democratic aims of the proletariat
should be degraded to the level of bourgeois moderation and should not
overstep the boundaries beyond which "the bourgeoisie will recoil. On<c the
pretext of rendering their work more profound, on the pretext of rousing the
initiative of the workers and pursuing a pure class policy, the Economists
were actually delivering the working class into the hands of the liberal-
bourgeois politicans, i.e., were leading the Party along a path which ob-
jectively meant exactly that. The new 7$fcra-ites, using the same pretexts,
are in fact betraying the interests of the proletariat in the democratic revo-
lution to the bourgeoisie, i.e., are leading the Party along a path which ob-
jectively means exactly that. The Economists thought that leadership of
the political struggle was no concern of the Social-Democrats but proper-
ly the business of the liberals. The new Jsfcra-ites think that active manage-
422 V. I. LENIN
merit of the democratic revolution is no concern of the Social-Democrats,
but properly the business of the democratic bourgeoisie, for, they argue, if
the proletariat takes a pre-eminent part in the revolution and leads it, this
will "diminish the sweep" of the revolution.
In short, the new Iskra-ites are the epigones of Economism, not only by
virtue of their origin at the Second Party Congress, but also by their pre-
sent manner of presenting the tactical tasks of the proletariat in the demo-
cratic revolution. They, too, represent an intellectual-opportunist wing
of the Party. In the sphere of organization they began with the anarchist
individualism of intellectuals and finished with "disorganization- as- a-proc-
ess," providing in the "Rules" adopted by the Conference for the separa-
tion of the Party's publishing activities from the Party organization, an
indirect and practically four-stage system of elections, a system of Bona-
partist plebiscites instead of democratic representation, and finally the
principle of "agreements" between the part and the whole. In Party tactics
they continued to slide down the same inclined plane. In the "plan of the
Zemstvo campaign" they declared that speeches to Zemstvo-ists were "a
higher type of demonstration," finding only two active forces on the polit-
ical scene (on the eve of January 9!) — the government and the democratic
bourgeoisie. They made the pressing problem of armament "more profound"
by substituting for the direct and practical slogan to take to arms, the slo-
gan to arm the people with a burning desire to arm themselves. The tasks
connected with an armed uprising, with the establishment of a provisional
government and with a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship have now
been distorted and toned down by them in their official resolutions.
"Lest the bourgeoisie recoil" — this final chord of their last resolution
throws a glaring light on the question of where their path is leading the
Party.
The democratic revolution in Russia is a bourgeois revolution by reason
of its social and economic content. But a mere repetition of this correct
Marxian proposition is not enough. It must be properly understood and
properly applied in political slogans. In general, all political liberties that
are founded on present-day, i.e., capitalist, relations of production are
bourgeois liberties. The demand for liberties expresses primarily the in-
terests of the bourgeoisie. The representatives of the bourgeoisie were the
first to raise this demand. Its supporters have everywhere used the liberties
they acquired, like masters, reducing them to moderate and meticulous
bourgeois doses, combining them with the most subtle methods of suppres-
sing the revolutionary proletariat in peaceful times and with brutally cruel
methods in times of stress.
* But only the rebel Narodniks, the anarchists and the "Economists"
could deduce from this that the struggle for liberty should be rejected or
disparaged. These intellectual-philistine doctrines could be foisted on the
proletariat only for a time and against its will. The proletariat always
realized instinctively that it needed political liberty, needed it more than
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 423
anyone else, despite the fact that its immediate effect would be to strengthen
and to organize the bourgeoisie. It is not by avoiding the class struggle
that the proletariat expects to find its salvation but by developing it, by
extending its scope, increasing the conscious elements in the struggle, its
organization and determination. The Social-Democrat who disparages the
tasks of the political struggle becomes transformed from a tribune of
the people into a trade union secretary. The Social-Democrat who disparages
the proletarian tasks in a democratic bourgeois revolution becomes trans-
formed from a leader of the people 's revolution into a leader of a free la-
bour union.
Yes, the people's revolution. Social-Democracy has always fought quite
justifiably against the bourgeois-democratic abuse of the word "people."
It demands that this word shall not be used to cover up the failure to under-
stand the class antagonisms within the people. It insists categorically on
the need for complete class independence for the party of the proletariat.
But it divides the "people" into "classes," not in order that the advanced
class may become self-centred, or confine itself to narrow aims and emascu-
late its activity out of the consideration that the economic rulers of the
world might be frightened away, but in order that the advanced class,
which does not suffer from the half- hear tedness, vacillation and indecision
of the intermediate classes, may with all the greater energy and enthu-
siasm fight for the cause of the whole of the people, at the head of the whole
of the people.
That is what the present-day new /*£ra-ites so often fail to understand
and why they substitute for active political slogans in the democratic rev-
olution a mere pedantic repetition of the word "class," parsed in all gen-
ders and cases !
The democratic revolution is a bourgeois revolution. The slogan of a
Black Redistribution, or "land and liberty" — this most widespread slo-
gan of the peasant masses, downtrodden and ignorant, yet passionately
yearning for light and happiness — is a bourgeois slogan. But we Marxists
should know that there is not, nor can there be, any other path to real
freedom for the proletariat and the peasantry, than the path of bourgeois
freedom and bourgeois progress. We must not forget that there is not, nor
can there be, at the present time, any other means of bringing Socialism
nearer, than complete political liberty, than a democratic republic, than a
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.
As the representatives of the advanced and only revolutionary class, rev-
olutionary without reservations, doubts or retrospection, we must present
to the whole of the people the aims of a democratic revolution as widely and
as boldly as possible, displaying the utmost initiative. In the sphere
of theory, to disparage these aims means to make a caricature of
Marxism, to distort it in philistine fashion, while in the sphere of
practical politics it means delivering the cause of the revolution into
the hands of the bourgeoisie, which will inevitably recoil from the task
424 V. I. LENIN
of consistently carrying out the revolution* The difficulties that lie
on the road to complete victory of the revolution are enormous. No one
could blame the representatives of the proletariat if, having done every-
thing in their power, their efforts were defeated by the resistance of the
reaction, the treachery of the bourgeoisie and the ignorance of the masses.
But everybody, and the class-conscious proletariat above all, will con-
demn Social-Democracy if it curtails the revolutionary energy of the
democratic revolution and dampens the revolutionary ardour because
it is afraid to win, because it is actuated by the consideration that the
bourgeoisie might recoil.
Revolutions are the locomotives of history, said Marx. Revolutions are
the festivals of the oppressed and the exploited. At no other time are the
masses of the people in a position to come forward so actively as creators of
a new social order as at a time of revolution. At such times the people are
capable of performing miracles, if judged by the narrow, philistine scale of
gradual progress. But the leaders of the revolutionary parties must also
make their aims more comprehensive and bold at such a time, so that their
slogans are always in advance of the revolutionary initiative of the masses,
serving as a beaconlight, revealing to them our democratic and Socialist
ideal in all its magnitude and splendour, and showing them the shortest and
most direct route to complete, absolute and decisive victory. Let us leave to
the opportunists of the Osvdbozhdeniye bourgeoisie the task of inventing
roundabout, circuitous paths of compromise out of fear of the revolution
and of the direct path. If we are compelled by force to drag ourselves along
such paths, we shall be able to fulfil our duty in petty, everyday work also.
But let ruthless struggle first decide the choice of the path. We shall be
traitors to and betrayers of the revolution if we do not use the festive ener-
gy of the masses and their revolutionary ardour in order to wage a ruthless
and unflinching struggle for the direct and decisive path. Let the bourgeois
opportunists contemplate the future reaction with cowardly fear. The work-
ers will not be frightened either by the thought that the reaction prom-
ises to be terrible or by the thought that the bourgeoisie proposes to recoil.
The workers are not looking forward to striking bargains, are not asking
for sops; they are striving to crush the reactionary forces without mercy,
i.e., to set up ^.revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and
the peasantry.
Of course, greater dangers threaten the ship of our Party in stormy times
than in periods of the smooth "sailing" of liberal progress, which means
the painfully slow sweating of the working class by its exploiters. Of course,
the tasks of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship are a thousand times
more difficult and more complicated 'than the tasks of an "extreme opposi-
tion" or of exclusively parliamentary struggle. But whoever can deliberate-
ly prefer smooth sailing and the path of safe "opposition" in the present
revolutionary situation had better abandon Social-Democratic work for a
while, had better wait until the revolution is over, when the festive days
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 425
will have passed, when humdrum everyday life starts again and his nar-
row routine standards no longer strike such an abominably discordant
note, or constitute such an ugly distortion of the tasks of the prog-
ressive class.
At the head of the whole of the people, and particularly of the peasant-
ry — for complete freedom, for a consistent democratic revolution, for a
republic! At the head of all the toilers and the exploited — for Socialism!
Such must in practice be the policy of the revolutionary proletariat, such
is the class slogan which must permeate and determine the solution of every
tactical problem, of every practical step of the workers' party during the
revolution.
426 V. I. LENIN
POSTSC RI PT
ONCE AGAIN 08VOBOZHDENIYE-ISM, ONCE AGAIN NEW
ISKRA-ISM
Numbers 71-72 of the Osvobozhdeniye and Nos. 102-103 of the Iskra
provide a wealth of additional material on the question to which we have
devoted Chapter 8 of our pamphlet. Since it is quite impossible to make use
of the whole of this rich material here, we shall confine ourselves to the
most important points only: first, to the kind of "realism" in Social-
Democracy that is praised by the Osvobozhdeniye and why the latter must
praise it; secondly, to the interrelationship between the concepts revolution
and dictatorship.
1. WHAT DO THE BOURGEOIS LIBERAL REALISTS PRAISE THE
SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC "REALISTS" FOR?
The articles entitled "The Split in Russian Social-Democracy" and
*The Triumph of Common Sense" (Osvobozhdeniye No. 72) set forth the
opinion on Social-Democracy held by the representatives of the liberal
bourgeoisie, an opinion which is of remarkable value for class-conscious
proletarians. We cannot too strongly recommend every Social-Democrat
to read these articles in full and to pore over every sentence in them. We
shall reproduce first of all the most important propositions contained in
both these articles:
"It is fairly difficult," writes the Osvobozhdeniye , "for an outside
observer to grasp the real political meaning of the differences that
have split the Social-Democratic Party into two factions. A defini-
tion of the 'Majority' faction as the more radical and unswerving, as
distinct from the 'Minority* which allows of certain compromises in
the interests of the cause, would not be quite exact, and in any case
would not provide an exhaustive characterization. At any rate the
traditional dogmas of Marxian orthodoxy are observed by the Minori-
ty faction with even greater zeal perhaps than by the Lenin faction.
The following characterization would appear to us to be more accurate.
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 427
The fundamental political temper of the 'Majority* is abstract
revolutionism, rebellion for the sake of rebellion, an eagerness to
stir up an uprising among the popular masses by any available means
and to seize power immediately in their name; to a certain extent
this brings the 'Leninists' close to the Socialist- Revolutionaries and
overshadows the idea of the class struggle in their minds with the
idea of a Russian revolution involving the whole people; while abjur-
ing in practice much of the narrow-mindedness of the Social-Demo-
cratic doctrine, the 'Leninists' are, on the other hand, thoroughly
imbued with the narrow-mindedness of revolutionism, renounce all
practical work except the preparation of an immediate uprising, ig-
nore on principle all forms of legal and semi- legal agitation and every
species of practically useful compromise with other oppositional
trends. The Minority, on the contrary, while steadfastly adhering to
the doctrine of Marxism, at the same time preserves the realistic
elements of the Marxian world outlook. The fundamental idea of
this faction is to oppose the interests of the 'proletariat' to the in-
terests of the bourgeoisie. But, on the other hand, the struggle of the
proletariat is conceived — of course within certain bounds set by the
immutable dogmas of Social-Democracy — in realistically sober
fashion, with a clear realization of all the concrete conditions and aims
of this struggle. Neither of the two factions pursues its basic point of
view quite consistently, for in their ideological and political activity
they are bound by the strict formulae of the Social-Democratic cate-
chism, which keep the 'Leninists ' from becoming unqualified putsch-
ists after the fashion of certain, at least, of the Socialist- Revolu-
tionaries, and the 'Iskra-itcs' from becoming the practical leaders of
a real political movement of the working class."
And, after quoting the contents of the most important resolutions,
the Osvobozhdeniye writer goes on to illustrate his general "thoughts"
with several concrete remarks about them. In comparison with the Third
Congress, he says, "the Minority Conference takes a totally different
attitude towards armed insurrection." "In connection with the attitude
towards armed insurrection," there is a difference in the respective resolu-
tions on a provisional government. "A similar difference is revealed with
regard to the worker's trade unions. The 'Leninists' do not breathe a
single word in their resolution about this most important starting point
in the political education and organization of the working class. The Mi-
nority, on the other hand, drew up a very weighty resolution." With
regard to the liberals, both factions, he says, are unanimous but the
Third Congress "repeats almost word for word Plekhanov's resolutipn
on the attitude towards the liberals adopted at the Second Congress and
rejects Starovyer's resolution adopted by the same Congress, which called
for a more favourable attitude to the liberals." Although the Congress
428 V. I. LENIN
and the Conference resolutions on the peasant movement are in agreement
on the whole, "the Majority' lays more emphasis on the idea of the rev-
olutionary confiscation of the estates of the landlords and other land,
while the 'Minority 'wants to make the demand for democratic state and
administrative reforms the basis of its agitation."
Finally, the Osvobozhdeniye cites from the Iskfa, Nlo. 100, a Menshevik
resolution, the main clause of which reads as follows:
"In view of the fact that at the present time underground work
alone does not secure adequate participation of the masses in Party
life and in some degree leads to the masses as such being contrasted
to the Party as an illegal organization, the latter must assume
leadership of the trade union struggle of the workers on a legal basis,
strictly linking up this struggle with the Social-Democratic tasks." In
commenting on this rerolution the Osvcbozhdeniye exclaims:
"We heartily welcome this resolution as a triumph of common
sense, as evidence that a definite section of the Social-Democratic
Party is beginning to see the light with regard to tactics."
The reader now has before him all the essential opinions of the Os-
vobozhdeniye. It would, of course, be the greatest mistake to regard these
opinions as correct in the sense of corresponding to objective truth. Every
Social-Democrat will easily detect mistakes in them at every step. It
would be naive to forget that these opinions are thoroughly permeated with
the interests and views of the liberal bourgeoisie, and that accordingly
they are utterly biased and tendentious. They reflect the views of the So-
cial-Democrats in the same way as a concave or convex mirror reflects
objects. But it would be an even greater mistake to forget that in the
final analysis these bourgeois-distorted opinions reflect the real interests
of the bourgeoisie, which, as a class, undoubtedly understands correct-
ly what trends in Social-Democracy are advantageous, close, akin and
agreeable, and what trends are harmful, distant, alien and antipathetic,
to it. No bourgeois philosopher or bourgeois publicist can ever understand
Social-Democracy properly, be it the Menshevik or the Bolshevik variety.
But if he is a more or less sensible publicist, his class instinct will not
deceive him, and he will always grasp, on the whole correctly, the sig-
nificance for the bourgeoisie of one or another trend in the Social-
Democratic movement, although he may present it in a distorted way.
That is why the class instinct of our enemy, his class opinion, is always
deserving of the most serious attention on the part of every class-conscious
proletarian.
What, then, does the class instinct of the Russian bourgeoisie as ex-
pressed by the Osvobozhdentsi, tell us?
It quite definitely expresses its satisfaction with the trend represented
by the new Iskra, praising it for its realism, sobriety, the triumph of
common sense, the seriousness of its resolutions, its beginning to see the
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. Itf DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 429
light on questions of tactics, its practicalness, etc. — and it expresses dis-
satisfaction with the trend of the Third Congress, censuring it for car-
row-mindedness, revolutionism, its rebel spirit, its repudiation of practi-
cally useful compromises, etc. The class instinct of the bourgeoisie sug-
gests to it exactly what had been repeatedly proved with the help of in-
controvertible facts in our literature, namely, that the new Iskra-ites
are the opportunists and their opponents the revolutionary wing of the
present-day Russian Social-Democratic movement. The liberals can-
not but sympathize with the trend of the former, and cannot but censure
the trend of the latter. The liberals, as the ideologists of the bourgeoisie,
fully understand the advantages to the bourgeoisie of "practicalness,
sobriety and seriousness" on the part of the working class, i.e., of nar-
rowing in fact its sphere of activity to the bounds of capitalism, reforms,
the trade union struggle, etc. What is dangerous and terrible to the bourgeoi-
sie is the "revolutionary narrow-mindedness" of the proletariat and
its endeavour to win leadership in a popular Russian revolution to pro-
mote its own class aims.
That this is the real meaning of the word "realism" as employed by
the Osvobozhdeniye is evident among other things from the way it
was used previously by the Osvdbozhdeniye and Mr. Struve. The Iskra
itself could not but admit that this was the meaning of the Osvobozhdeniye9 8
"realism." Take, for instance, the article entitled "It Is High Time!"
in the supplement to the Iskra No. 73-74. The author of this article (a
consistent exponent of the views of the "Marsh" at the Second
Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party) frankly ex-
pressed the opinion that "at the Congress Akimov played the part of a
spectre of opportunism rather than of its real representative." And the
Editorial Board of the Iskra was forthwith obliged to correct the author
of the article "It Is High Time!" by stating in a footnote:
"We cannot agree with this opinion. Comrade Akimov ?s views
on the program bear the clear imprint of opportunism, which fact
is admitted even by the Osvobozhdeniye critic, who — >in one of its
recent issues — stated that Comrade Akimov is an adherent of the
'realist ' — read: revisionist — tendency."
Thus the Iskra itself is perfectly aware that the Osvobozhdeniye 's "real-
ism" is simply opportunism and nothing else. If in attacking "liberal
realism" (Iskra, Nq. 102) the Iskra now passes over in silence the fact
that it was praised by the liberals for its realism, the explanation of this
circumstance is that such praise is harder to swallow than any censure.
Such praise (which the Osvobozhdeniye uttered not by mere chance and
not for the first time) proves the affinity that exists between the realism
of the liberals and those tendencies of Social-Democratic "realism" (read:
opportunism) that manifest themselves in every resolution of the new
Jafcra-ites by reason of the fallacy of their whole tactical line.
430 V. I. LENIN
Indeed, the Russian bourgeoisie has already fully revealed its incon-
sistency and egoism in the "popular" revolution — has revealed it in Mr.
Struvc's arguments and by the whole tone and content of the numerous
liberal newspapers, and by the nature of the political utterances of the bulk
of the Zemstvo-ists, the bulk of the intellectuals and in general of all the
adherents of Messrs. Trubetskoy, Petrunkevich, Rodichev and Co. Of
course ^the bourgeoisie does not always clearly understand, but in gen-
eral and on the whole it does grasp excellently, by reason of its class in-
stinct, that, on the one hand, the proletariat and the "people" are useful
for its revolution as cannon fodder, as a battering-ram against the autoc-
racy, but that, on the other hand, the proletariat and the revolutionary
peasantry will be terribly dangerous to it if they win a "decisive victory
over tsarism" and carry the democratic revolution to completion. That
is why the bourgeoisie strains every effort to the end that the proletariat
should be satisfied with a "modest" role in the revolution, that it should
be more sober, practical and realistic, that its activity should be circum-
scribed by the principle, "lest the bourgeoisie recoil. "
The bourgeois intellectuals know full well that they will not be able
to get rid of the working-class movement. That is why they do not
come out against the working-class movement, they do not come out
against the class struggle of the proletariat — no, they even pay lip service
to the right to strike, to a genteel class struggle, understanding the
working-class movement and the class struggle in the Brentano or Hirsch-
Duncker sense. In other words they are fully prepared to "yield" to the
workers the right to strike and to organize in trade unions (which has
already in fact been practically won by the workers themselves), provided
the workers renounce their "rebelliousness," their "narrow-minded revo-
lutionism," their hostility to "practically useful compromises," their
claims and aspirations to put the imprint of their class struggle on the
"popular Russian revolution," the imprint of proletarian consistency,
proletarian determination and "plebeian Jacobinism." That is why the
bourgeois intellectuals all over Russia exert every effort, resorting to
thousands of ways and means — books,* lectures, speeches, talks, etc.,
etc. — to imbue the workers with the ideas of (bourgeois) sobriety,
(liberal) practicalness, (opportunist) realism, (Brentano) class struggle,
(Hirsch-Duncker) trade unions, etc. The latter two slogans are partic-
ularly convenient for the bourgeois of the "Constitutional-Democratic"
or the Osvobozhdeniye party, since outwardly they coincide with the
Marxian slogans, since with a few small omissions and some slight dis-
tortions they can easily be confused with and sometimes even passed off
for Social-Democratic slogans. For. instance, the legal liberal newspaper
Rassvyet [Dawn] (which we hope some day to discuss in greater detail
with the readers of the Proletary) frequently says such "bold" things
Cf. Prokopovich, The Labour Question in Russia.
TWO TACTICS OP S.*D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 431
about the class struggle, about the possible deception of the proletariat
by the bourgeoisie, about the working-class movement, about the initiative
of the proletariat, etc., etc., that the inattentive reader or an unen-
lightened worker might easily be led to believe that its "social-democrat-
ism" is genuine. Actually, however, it is a bourgeois imitation of so-
cial-democratism, an opportunist distortion and perversion of the con-
cept of class struggle.
At the root of this gigantic (in the extent of its influence on the mass-
es) bourgeois subterfuge lies the tendency to reduce the working-class
movement to a trade union movement for the most part, to keep it
as far away as possible from pursuing an independent (i.e., revolutionary
and directed towards a democratic dictatorship) policy, to "overshadow
in the minds of the workers the idea of a Russian revolution involving
the whole people with the idea of the class struggle."
As the reader will perceive, we have turned the Osvobozhdeniye for-
mulation upside down. This is an excellent formulation, excellently ex-
pressing the two views of the role of the proletariat in a democratic rev-
olution, the bourgeois view and the Social-Democratic view. The bour-
geoisie wants to confine the proletariat to the trade union movement and
thereby to "overshadow in its mind the idea of a Russian revolution
involving the whole people with the idea of the (Brentano) class struggle" —
which is wholly in the spirit of the Bernsteinian authors of the Credo,
who overshadowed in the minds of the workers the idea of political strug-
gle with the idea of a "purely working-class" movement. Social-Democracy,
however, wants, on the contrary, to develop the class struggle of the
proletariat to the point where the latter will take the leading part in the
popular Russian revolution, i.e., will lead this revolution to the democrat-
ic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.
The revolution in our country is one that involves the whole people,
says the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. Therefore, you, as a separate class,
must confine yourselves to your class struggle, must in the name of "com-
mon sense" direct your main attention to the trade unions, and their legal-
ization, must consider these same trade unions "the most important start-
ing point in your political education and organization," must in a revo-
lutionary situation draw up for the most part "serious" resolutions like
the new Iskra resolution, must pay heed to resolutions that are "more
favourably inclined to the liberals," must show preference for leaders
who display a tendency to become "practical leaders of a real political
movement of the working class," must "preserve the realistic elements
of the Marxian world outlook" (if you have unfortunately already become
infected with the "strict formulae" of this "unscientific" catechism).
The revolution in our country is one involving the whole people,
Social-Democracy says to the proletariat. Therefore, you, as the most
progressive and the only consistently revolutionary class, must strive not
only to take a most active part but also to assume leadership in it. There-
432 V. I, LENIN
fore, you must not confine yourselves to a narrow conception of the
scope of the class struggle as meaning mainly the trade union movement,
but, on the contrary, you must strive to extend the scope and the content
of your class struggle to include not only all the aims of the present, dem-
ocratic, Russian revolution of the whole of the people, but the aims of
the subsequent Socialist revolution as well. Therefore, while not ignor-
ing the trade union movement, while not refusing to take advantage of
even the slightest legal possibilities, you must, in a revolutionary period,
make your prime tasks an armed uprising and the formation of a revolution-
ary army and a revolutionary government as being the only way to com-
plete victory of the people over tsarism, to the attainment of a democratic
republic and real political liberty.
It would be superfluous to speak about the half-hearted and inconsis-
tent stand, which, naturally, is so pleasing to the bourgeoisie, that the
new Iskra-ite resolutions took on this question because of their erroneous
"line."
II. COMRADE MARTYNOV RENDERS THE QUESTION "MORE
PROFOUND" AGAIN
Let us pass on to Martynov's articles in Nos. 102 and 103 of the Iskra.
We shall, of course, make no reply to Martynov's attempts to prove the
incorrectness of our and the correctness of his interpretation of a number
of citations from Engels and Marx. These attempts are so trivial, Marty-
nov's subterfuges are so obvious and the question is so clear that it would
be of no interest to dwell on this point again. Every thinking reader can
easily see through the simple wiles employed by Martynov in his retreat
all along the line, particularly after the appearance of the complete trans-
lation of Engels' pamphlet The Bakuninists at Work and Marx's Address
of the Central Council to the Communist League of March 1850, on the pre-
paration of which a group of collaborators of the Proletary are now work-
ing. A single quotation from Martynov's article will suffice to make his
retreat clear to the reader.
"The Iskra 'admits,' " says Martynov in No. 103, "that the es-
tablishment of a provisional government is one of the possible
and expedient ways of furthering the revolution, and denies the
expediency of the participation of Social-Democrats in a bourgeois
provisional government, precisely in the interests of a complete
seizure of the state machine, in the future for a Social-Democratic
revolution."
In other words, the Iskra now admits the absurdity of all its fears
concerning the responsibility of a revolutionary government for the Treas-
ury and the banks, concerning the danger and impossibility of taking
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 433
over the "prisons," etc. But the Iskra is only muddling things as of old,
confusing democratic with Socialist dictatorship. This muddle is una-
voidable, it is a means to cover up the retreat.
But among the muddle-heads of the new Iskra Martynov stands out
as a muddle-head of the first order, as a muddle-head of talent, if we may
say so. Confusing the question by his laborious efforts to render it "more
profound/' he thereby almost invariably "arrives at" new formulations
which show up splendidly the entire falsity of the stand he has taken.
You will remember how in the days of Economism he rendered Plekhanov
"more profound" and created the formulation: "economic struggle against
the employers and the government." It would be difficult to find in all
the literature of the Economists a more apt expression of the entire falsity
of this trend. It is the same today. Martynov zealously serves the new
Iskra and almost every time he opens his mouth he furnishes us with
new and excellent material for an evaluation of the new Iskra's false
position. In No. 102 (p. 3, col. 2) he says that Lenin "has imperceptibly
substituted 'dictatorship* for 'revolution.'"
As a matter of fact all the accusations levelled at us by the new Iskra-
ites can be reduced to this one. And how grateful we are to Martynov
for this accusation! What an invaluable service he renders us in the strug-
gle against the new Iskra ideas by formulating his accusation in this way!
We must positively beg the editors of the Iskra to let Martynov loose
against us more often for the purpose of rendering the attacks on the
Proletary "more profound" and for a "truly principled" formulation of
these attacks. For the more Martynov strains to argue on the plane of
principles, the worse are the results he gets, and the more clearly does
he reveal the gaps in the new Iskra ideas, the more successfully does he
perform on himself and on his friends the useful pedagogical operation:
reductio ad absurdum (reducing the principles of the new Iskra to the ab-
surd).
The Vperyod and the Proletary "substitute" the concept of dictator-
ship for that of revolution. The Iskra does not want such a "substitution. "
Just so, most esteemed Comrade Martynov! You have unwittingly stated
a great truth. With this new formulation you have confirmed our conten*
tion that the Iskra is dragging at the tail of the revolution, is straying
into an Osvdbozhdeniye formulation of its tasks, whereas the Vperyod and
the Proletary are issuing slogans that lead the democratic revolution
forward.
You don't understand this, Comrade Martynov? In view of the impor-
tance of the question we shall try to give you a detailed explanation.
The bourgeois nature of a democratic revolution expresses itself, among
other things, in the fact that a number of classes, groups and sections
of society, whose stand is based entirely on the recognition of private prop-
erty and commodity production, and which are incapable of going beyond
these bounds, are led by force of circumstances to recognize the inefficacy
28—685
434 V. I. LENIN
of the autocracy and of the whole feudal order in general, and join in the
demand for liberty. The bourgeois nature, however, of this liberty, which is
demanded by "society" and advocated in a flood of words (and words only I)
by the landowners and the capitalists, is manifesting itself more and more
clearly. At the same time the radical difference between the struggle of
the workers for liberty and the struggle of the bourgeoisie, between pro-
letarian and liberal democratism, becomes ever more obvious. The working
class and its class-conscious representatives are marching in the van of this
struggle and urging it forward, not only without fearing to carry it to
completion, but aspiring to go far beyond the uttermost limits of the dem-
ocratic revolution. The bourgeoisie is inconsistent and self-seeking,
and accepts the slogans calling for liberty only in part and hypocritically.
All attempts to draw a particular line or to draw up particular "points"
(like the points in Starovyer's or the Conferences ' resolution) beyond
which begins this hypocrisy of the bourgeois friends of liberty, or, if
you like, this betrayal of liberty by its bourgeois friends, are unavoid*
ably doomed to failure; for the bourgeoisie, caught between two fires
(the autocracy and the proletariat), is capable of changing its position
and slogans by a thousand ways and means, adapting itself by moving
an inch to the Left or an inch to the Right, constantly bargaining and
dickering. The task of proletarian democratism does not consist in invent-
ing such dead "points," but in unceasingly passing judgment on the
developing political situation, in exposing the ever new and unforeseen
inconsistencies and betrayals on the part of the bourgeoisie.
Recall the history of Mr. Struve's political writings in the illegal
press, the history of Social-Democracy's war with him, and you will see
clearly how these tasks were carried out by Social-Democracy, the cham-
pion of proletarian democratism. Mr. Struve began with a purely Shipov
slogan: "Rights and an authoritative Zemstvo" (see my article in Zarya,
"The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of Liberalisms").*
Social-Democracy exposed him and pushed him in the direction of a
definitely constitutional program. When this "pushing" took effect,
thanks to the particularly rapid course of revolutionary events, the strug-
gle shifted to the next question erf tiemocracy: not only a constitution
in general, but absolutely universal and equal suffrage, direct elections
and secret ballot. When we "captured" this new position from the "enemy"
(the adoption of universal suffrage by the Osvobozkdeniye League) we began
to press further, showing up the hypocrisy and falsity of a two chamber
system, and" the fact that universal suffrage had not beenfullyrecogni2ed
by the Osvobozhdentei, pointing to their monarchist and showing up the
huckstering nature of their democratism, or, in other words, the selling
out of the interests of the great Russian revolution by these Osvobozhdeniye
hetoes of the money-bags.
' Cf. Lenin, Selected Works, Eng. cd., Vol. II.— Ed
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 436
Finally, the savage obstinacy of the autocracy, the enormous progress
of the civil war and the hopelessness of the position into which the mon-
archists forced Russia have begun to penetrate even the thickest of
skulls. The revolution has become a fact. It is no longer necessary to be
a revolutionary to acknowledge the revolution. The autocratic government
has actually been disintegrating in the sight of all. As has justly been re-
marked in the legal press by a certain liberal (Mr. Gredeskul), actual insub-
ordination to this government has set in. Despite all its apparent strength
the autocracy has proved impotent; the events attending the developing
revolution have simply begun to brush aside this parasitic organism which
is rotting alive. The liberal bourgeois, compelled to base their activity
(or, to put it more correctly, their political wire-pulling) on relationships
as they are actually taking shape, have begun to realize the necessity of
recognizing the revolution. They do so not because they are revolutionaries;
but despite the fact that they are not revolutionaries. They do so of ne-
cessity and against their will, viewing the successes of the revolution
with an angry eye, accusing the autocracy of being revolutionary
because it does not want to strike a deal, but wants to fight it out
to a finish. Born hucksters, they hate struggle and revolution, but cir»
cumstances force them to tread the ground of revolution, for there is no
other ground under their feet.
We are witnessing a highly instructive and highly comic spectacle.
The bourgeois liberal prostitutes are trying to drape themselves in the
toga of revolution. The Osvobozhdentsi — risum teneatis, amicil* — the
Osvobozhdentsi are beginning to hold forth in the name of the revolution!
The Osvobozhdentsi are beginning to make assurances that they "do not fear
revolution" (Mr. Struve in the Osvobozhdeniye No. 72) ! ! ! The Osvobozhdenist
are voicing their claims "to be at the head of the revolution" 1 1 !
This is an exceptionally noteworthy phenomenon, characteming not
only the progress of bourgeois liberalism, but even more so the progress
of the real successes of the revolutionary movement, which has compelled
recognition. Even the bourgeoisie is beginning to feel that it is more ad-
vantageous to take its stand on the side of the revolution — so shaky is
the autocracy. On the other hand, however, this phenomenon, wfcich tes-
tifies to the fact that the entire movement has risen to a new and higher
plane, at the same time sets us new and higher aims. The recognition
of the revolution on the part of the bourgeoisie cannot be sincere, irre-
spective of the personal integrity of this or 'that bourgeois ideologist. The
bourgeoisie cannot help introducing selfishness and inconsistency, the
spirit of bargaining and petty reactionary tricks even into this higher
stage of the movement. Now we must differently formulate the immediate
concrete tasks of the revolution, in line with our program and enlarging
upon it. What was adequate yesterday is inadequate today. Yesterday,
* Restrain your laughter, friends I — Ed,
28*
43fc V. I. LENIN
perhaps, the demand for the recognition of the revolution was adequate
as an advanced democratic slogan. Today this is not enough. The revo-
lution has forced even Mr. Struve to recognize it. Today what is demanded
of the advanced class is to define exactly the very content of the urgent and
pressing tasks of this revolution. Messrs, the Struves, while recognising
the reyolution, stick out their donkeys' ears again and again, once more
striking up the old song about the possibility of a peaceful outcome, about
having Nicholas call on the Osvobozhdenlsi to take power, etc., etc.
The Osvobozhdentsi recognize the revolution in order to juggle it without
danger to themselves, in order to betray it. It is our job at the present
time to show the proletariat and the whole people the inadequacy of the
slogan: "Revolution"; we must show how necessary it is to have a clear
and unambiguous, consistent and determined definition of the content
of the revolution. And this definition is provided by the one slogan ca-
pable of correctly expressing a "decisive victory" of the revolution, the
slogan: for a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat
and the peasantry.
i We have shown that the Osvobozhdentsi are ascending (not without
being prodded by the Social-Democrats) step by step in the matter of rec-
ognizing democracy. At first the issue in the dispute between us was:
the Shipov system (rights and an authoritative Zemstvo) or constitution-
alism? Then it was: limited suffrage or universal suffrage? Later: recog-
nition of the revolution or a huckster's bargain with the autocracy?
Finally, now it is: recognition of the revolution without a dictatorship
of the proletariat and the peasantry or recognition of the demand for a
dictatorship of these classes in the democratic revolution? It is possible
and even probable that the Osvobozhdentsi (it does not matter whether
they be the present ones or their successors in the Left wing of the bour«
geois-democratic movement) will ascend another step, i.e., recognize in
time (perhaps by the time Comrade Martynov goes up one more step)
the slogan of dictatorship also. It will inevitably be so if the Russian rev-
olution continues to forge ahead successfully and attains a decisive
victory. What will be the position of Social-Democracy then? The com-
plete victory of the present revolution will be the end of the democratic
revolution and the beginning of a determined struggle for a Socialist
revolution. The satisfaction of the demands of the present-day peasantry,
the complete smashing of reaction, and the attainment of a democratic
republic will mark the end of the revolutionism of the bourgeoisie and
even of the petty bourgeoisie — will be the beginning of the real struggle
on the part of the proletariat for Socialism. The more complete the demo-
cratic revolution will be, the sooner, the more widespread, the purer and the
more determined will be the development of this new struggle. The slogan
calling for a "democratic'* dictatorship expresses the historically limited
nature of the present revolution and the necessity of a new struggle on
the basis of the new order for the complete emancipation of the working
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 437
class from all oppression and all exploitation. In other words: when thfc
democratic bourgeoisie or petty bourgeoisie ascends another step, when
not only the revolution but the complete victory of the revolution be-
comes an accomplished fact, then we shall "substitute" (perhaps amid the
horrified cries of new Martynovs in the future) for the slogan of the dem-
.ocratic dictatorship, the slogan of a Socialist dictatorship of the prole-
tariat, i.e., of a complete Socialist revolution.
III. THE VULGAR BOURGEOIS REPRESENTATION OF DICTATORSHIP
AND MARX'S VIEW OF IT
Mehring tells us in the notes to his edition of Marx's articles from the
Neue Rheinische Zeitung of 1848 that one of the reproaches levelled at
this newspaper by bourgeois publications was that it had allegedly de-
manded "the immediate introduction of a dictatorship as the sole means
of achieving democracy" (Marx, Nachlass, Vol. Ill, p. 53). From the vul-
gar bourgeois standpoint the concepts dictatorship and democracy are
mutually exclusive. With no understanding of the theory of class strug-
gle, and accustomed as he is to seeing in the political arena only the petty
squabbling of the various bourgeois circles and coteries, the bourgeois
conceives dictatorship to mean the annulment of all the liberties and
guarantees of democracy, tyranny of every kind, and every sort of abuse
of power in the personal interests of a dictator. In point of fact, it is pre-
cisely this vulgar bourgeois view that is manifested in the writings of
our Martynov, who winds up his "new campaign" in the new Iskra by
attributing the partiality of the Vperyod and the Proletary for the slogan
of dictatorship to Lenin's "being obsessed by a passionate desire to try
his luck" (Iskray No. 103, p. 3, col. 2). In order to explain to Mar-
tynov the concept of class dictatorship as distinct from personal dicta-
torship, and the aims of a democratic dictatorship as distinct from a So-
cialist dictatorship, it would not be amiss to dwell on the views of the
Xeue Rheinische Zeitung.
"Every provisional organization of the state after a revolution,"
wrote the Neue Rheinische Zeitung on September 14, 1848, "requires
a dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that. 'From
the very beginning we have reproached Camphausen" (the head of the
Ministry after March 18, 1848) "for not acting dictatorially, for not
having immediately smashed up and eliminated the remnants of the old
institutions. And while Herr Camphausen was lulling himself with
constitutional illusions, the defeated party (i.e., the party of re-
action) strengthened its positions in the bureaucracy and in the army,
and here and there even began to venture upon open struggle."
Here, Mehring justly remarks, we have in a few sentences a summary
of all that was propounded in detail in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in
V. I. LENIN
long articles on the Camphausen Ministry. What do these words of Marx
tell us? That a provisional revolutionary government must act dicta-
torially (a proposition which the Iskra was totally unable to grasp since
it was fighting shy of the slogan of dictatorship), and that the task
of such a dictatorship is to destroy the remnants of the old institutions
(which is precisely what was clearly stated in the resolution of the Third
Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party about the strug-
gle against counter-revolution and what, as we have shown above, was
omitted in the resolution of the Conference). Thirdly, and lastly, it fol-
lows from these words that Marx castigated the bourgeois democrats
for entertaining "constitutional illusions" in a period of revolution and
open civil war. The meaning of these words becomes particularly ob-
vious from the article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung of June 6, 1848.
Marx wrote:
"A constituent national assembly must first of all be an active,
revolutionary- active assembly. The Frankfurt Assembly, however,
is busying itself with school exercises in parliamentarism while
allowing the government to act. Let us assume that this learned coun-
cil succeeds after mature consideration in working out the best
possible agenda and the best possible constitution. But what is the
use of the best possible agenda and of the best possible constitution,
if the German governments have in the meantime placed the bayo-
net on the agenda?"
That is the meaning of the slogan of dictatorship. We can gauge from
this what Marx's attitude would have been towards resolutions which
call a "decision to organize a constitutent assembly" a decisive victory,
or which invite us to "remain the party of extreme revolutionary opposi-
tion!"
Major questions in the life of nations are settled only by force. The
reactionary classes are usually themselves the first to resort to violence,
to civil war; they are the first to "place the bayonet on the agenda" as the
Russian autocracy has been doing systematically and consistently every-
where ever since January 9. And since such a situation has arisen, since
the bayonet has really become the main point on the political agenda,
since insurrection has proved to be imperative and urgent — constitution-
al illusions and school exercises in f parliamentarism become only a
screen for the bourgeois betrayal of the revolution, a screen to conceal
the fact that the bourgeoisie is "recoiling" from the revolution. It is
therefore the slogan of dictatorship that the genuinely revolutionary class
must advance.
On the question of the tasks of this dictatorship Marx wrote, already
in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, as follows:
"The National Assembly had only to act dictatorially against
all the reactionary attempts of the obsolete governments, and the
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 439
force of public opinion which it would then have won for itself
would be so great that all bayonets and rifle butts would have been
splintered against it. ... But this Assembly bores the German
people instead of carrying the people with it or being carried away
by it."
In Marx's opinion, the National Assembly should have "eliminated
from the regime actually existing in Germany everything that contradict-
ed the principle of the sovereignty of the people," then it should have
"consolidated the revolutionary ground on which it rested in order to
make the sovereignty of the people, won by the revolution, secure against
all attacks."
Thus, the tasks which Marx set before a revolutionary government or
dictatorship in 1848 amounted in substance above all to a democratic
revolution, viz., defence against counter-revolution and the actual eli-
mination of everything that militated against the sovereignty of the peo-
ple. And this is no other than a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship.
To proceed: which classes, in Marx's opinion, could and should have
achieved this task (actually to exercise to the end the principle of the
sovereignty of the people and to beat off the attacks of the counter-revo-
lution)? Marx speaks of the "people." But we know that he always ruth-
lessly combated the petty-bourgeois illusions about the unity of the "peo-
ple" and about the absence of a class struggle within the people. In using
the word "people," Marx did not thereby gloss over class differences, but
united definite elements capable of carrying the revolution to completion.
After the victory of the Berlin proletariat on March 18, wrote the Neue
Bheinische Zeitung, the results of the revolution proved to be twofold:
"On the one hand the arming of the people, the right of asso-
ciation, the sovereignty of the people actually attained; on the
other hand, the preservation of the monarchy and the Camphausen-
Hansemann Ministry, i.e., the government of the representatives
of the upper bourgeoisie.
"Thus the revolution had two series of results, which had nec-
essarily to diverge. The people had emerged victorious , it had won
liberties of a decisively democratic nature, but the direct power
passed not into its hands, but into those of the big bourgeoisie.
In a word, the revolution was not completed. The people allowed
the formation of a ministry of big bourgeois, and the big bourgeois
immediately betrayed their tendencies by offering an alliance to
the old Prussian nobility and bureaucracy. Arnim, Canitz and
Schwerin joined the Ministry.
"The upper bourgeoisie, ever anti -revolutionary, concluded a defen-
sive and offensive alliance with the reaction out of fear of the people,
that is to say, the workers and the democratic bourgeoisie." (Our
italics.)
440 V. I. LENIN
Thus, not only a "decision to organize a constituent assembly," but
even its actual convocation is insufficient for a decisive victory of the revo-
lution! Even after a partial victory in an armed struggle (the victory
of the Berlin workers over the troops on March 18, 1848) an "incomplete"
revolution, a revolution "that has not been carried to completion,"
is possible. But on what does its completion depend? It depends on whose
hands the immediate rule passes into, whether into the hands of the Pet-
runkeviohes and Rodichevs, that is to say, the Camphausens and the
Hansemanns, or into the hands of the people, i.e., the workers and the
democratic bourgeoisie. In the first case the bourgeoisie will possess pow-
er, and the proletariat — "freedom of criticism," freedom to "remain the
party of the extreme revolutionary opposition." Immediately after the
victory the bourgeoisie will conclude an alliance with the reaction (this
would inevitably happen in Russia too, if, for example, the St. Petersburg
workers gained only a partial victory in the street fighting with the troops
and left it to Messrs. Petrunkevich and Co. to form a government). In
the second case, a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, i.e., the com-
plete victory of the revolution, would be possible.
It now remains to define more precisely what Marx really meant by
"democratic bourgeoisie" (democratische Burgerschaft) , which together
with the workers he called the people, in contradistinction to the big
bourgeoisie.
A clear answer to this question is supplied by the following passage
from an article in the Neue Kheinische Zeitung of July 29, 1848:
"... the German revolution of 1848 is only a parody of the
French revolution of 1789.
"On August 4, 1789, three weeks after the storming of the Bas-
tille, the French people in a single day prevailed over the feudal
burdens .
"On July 11, 1848, four months after the March barricades, the
feudal burdens prevailed over the German people. Teste Gierke
cum Hansemanno . *
"The French bourgeoisie of 1789 did not for a moment leave its
allies, the peasants, in the lurch. It knew that the foundation of
its rule was the destruction of feudalism in the countryside, the
creation of a free landowning (grundbesilzenderi) peasant class.
* "Witnesses: Herr Gierke and Herr Hansemann." Hansemann was a minister
who represented the party of the big bourgeoisie (Russian counterpart: Trubetskoy
or Rodichev, and the like), Gierke was Minister of Agriculture in the Hansemann
Cabinet, who drew up apian, a "bold" plan for "abolishing feudal burdens," pro-
fessedly "without compensation," but in fact for abolishing only the minor and
unimportant burdens while preserving or granting compensation for the more essen-
tial ones. Herr Gierke was something like the Russian Messrs. Kablukov, Manuilov,
Hertzenstein and similar bourgeois liberal friends of the mufchik who desire the
"extension of peasant landownership" but do not wish to hurt the landlords.
TWO TACTICS OF S-'D- IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION **1
"The German bourgeoisie of 1848 is without the least compunc-
tion betraying the peasants, who are its most natural allies, the flesh
of its flesh, and without whom it is powerless against the nobility.
"The continuance of feudal rights, their sanction under the guis«
of (illusory) redemption — such is the result of the German revolu-
tion of 1848. That is the little wool out of the great cry."
This is a very instructive passage: it gives us four important propo-
sitions: 1) The incompleted German revolution differs from the completed
French revolution in that the German bourgeoisie betrayed not only
democracy in general, but also the peasantry in particular. 2) The foun-
dation for the full consummation of a democratic revolution is the creation
of a free class of peasants. 3) The creation of such a class means the abo-
lition of feudal burdens, the destruction of feudalism, but does not yet mean
a Socialist revolution. 4) The peasants are the "most natural" allies of
the bourgeoisie, that is to say, of the democratic bourgeoisie, which
without them is "powerless" against the reaction.
With the corresponding allowances for concrete national peculiarities
and the substitution of serfdom for feudalism, all these propositions
are fully applicable to Russia in 1905. There is no doubt that by learning
from the experience of Germany, as elucidated by Marx, we cannot arrive at
any other slogan for a decisive victory of the revolution than the slogan
calling for a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and
the peasantry. There is no doubt that the main components of the "people,"
whom Marx in 1848 contrasted with the resisting reactionaries and the
treacherous bourgeoisie, are the proletariat and the peasantry. There is
no doubt that in Russia too the liberal bourgeoisie and the gentlemen of
the Osvobozhdeniye League are betraying and will continue to betray the
peasantry, i.e., will confine themselves to a pseudo-reform and take the
side of the landlords in the decisive battle between them and the peas-
antry. Only the proletariat is capable of supporting the peasantry
to the end in this struggle. There is no doubt, finally, that in Russia
also the success of the peasant struggle, i.e., the transfer of the whole of
the land to the peasantry, will signify a complete democratic revolution
and will constitute the social support of the revolution carried to its com-
pletion, but it will by no means signify a Socialist revolution, or "social-
ization," about which the ideologists of the petty bourgeoisie, the Social-
ist. Revolutionaries, talk. The success of the peasant uprising, the vic-
tory of the democratic revolution will but clear the way for a genuine and
decisive struggle for Socialism on the basis of a democratic republic.
In this struggle the peasantry as a landowning class will play the same
treacherous, vacillating part as is being played at present by the bourgeoi-
sie in the struggle for democracy. To forget this is to forget 'Socialism,
to deceive oneself and others as to the real interests and tasks of the pro*
letariat.
442 V. I. LENIN
In order to leave no gaps in the presentation of the views held by
Marx in 1848, it is necessary to note one essential difference between Ger-
man Social-Democracy of that time (or the Communist Party of the Pro-
letariat, to use the language of the period) and present-day Russian So-
cial-Democracy. Here is what Mehring says:
"It" (the Neue Rheiniache Zeitung) "appeared in the political
arena as the 'organ of democracy,' and although the red thread
trlat ran through all its articles is unmistakable, it at first repre-
sented the interests of the bourgeois revolution against absolutism
and feudalism to a greater extent than the interests of the prole-
tariat against the bourgeoisie. Very little is to be found in its col-
umns about the separate labour movement during the years of
the revolution, although one should not forget that along with it
there appeared twice a week, under the editorship of Moll and
Schapper, a special organ of the Cologne Labour League. At any
rate, the present-day reader will be struck by how little attention
the Neue Rheinische Zeitung paid to the German labour movement
of its day, although its most capable mind, Stephan Born, was a
pupil of Marx and Engels in Paris and Brussels and was now [in 1848]
correspondent for their newspaper in Berlin. Born relates in his
Memoirs that Marx and Engels never expressed a single word in
disapproval of his agitation among the workers; nevertheless, it
appears probable from subsequent declarations of Engels' that
they were dissatisfied, at least with the methods of this agitation.
Their dissatisfaction was justified inasmuch as the class conscious-
ness of the proletariat in by far the greater part of Germany was as yet
entirely undeveloped, and Born was forced to make many concessions
to it, which could not stand the test of criticism from the viewpoint
of the Communist Manifesto. Their dissatisfaction was unjustified
inasmuch as Born managed nonetheless to maintain the agitation
conducted by him on a relatively high plane. . . . Without doubt,
Marx and Engels were also historically and politically right in
thinking that it was to the utmost interest of the working class
primarily to push the bourgeois revolution forward as far as pos-
Bible. . . . Nevertheless, a remarkable proof of how the elementary
instinct of the labour movement is able to correct the conceptions of
t|ie most brilliant thinkers is provided by the fact that in April 1849
they decided in favour of a specific workers ' organization and of
participation in the labour congress, which was being prepared
Specially by the East Elbe" (Eastern Prussia) "proletariat."
Thus, it was only in April 1849, after the revolutionary newspaper had
been Appearing for almost a year (the Neue Bheinische Zeitung began pub-
lication on June 1, 1848) that Marx and Engels declared in favour of a
special workers' organizationl Until then they were merely running an
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 443
"organ of democracy" unconnected by any organizational ties with an
independent workers' party. This fact, monstrous and incredible as it may
appear from our present-day standpoint, clearly shows us what an enor-
mous difference there is between the German Social-Democratic Party
of those days and the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party of today.
This fact shows how much less the proletarian features of the movement,
the proletarian current within it, were in evidence in the German dem-
ocratic revolution (because of the backwardness of Germany in 1848
both economically and politically — its disunity as a state). This should
not be forgotten in judging Marx's repeated declarations during this
period and somewhat later about the need for organizing an independent
proletarian party. Marx arrived at this practical conclusion only as a
result of the experience of the democratic revolution, almost a year later —
so middle-class, so petty-bourgeois was the whole atmosphere in Germany
at that time. To us this conclusion is an old and solid acquisition of half
a century's experience of international Social-Democracy — an acquisition
with which we began to organize the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party. In our case there can be no question, for instance, of revolution-
ary proletarian newspapers keeping outside the pale of the Social-Dem-
ocratic Party of the proletariat, or of their appearing even for a moment
simply as "organs of democracy."
But the contrast which had hardly begun to reveal itself between Marx
and Stephan Born exists in our case in a form which is the more developed,
the more powerfully the proletarian current manifests itself in the demo-
cratic stream of our revolution. Speaking of the probable dissatisfaction of
Marx and Engels with the agitation conducted by Stephan Born, Mehring
expresses himself too mildly and too evasively. This is what Engels wrote
of Born in 1885 (in his preface to the Enthilllungen iiber den Kommiwi-
stenprozess zu Koln. Zurich, 1885):*
The members of the Communist League everywhere stood at the head
of the extreme democratic movement, proving thereby that the League
was an excellent school of revolutionary action. And he went on to say:
". . . the compositor Stephan Born, who had worked in Brussels
and Paris as an active member of the League, founded a Workers '
Brotherhood (Arbeiterverbrtiderung) in Berlin which became fairly
widespread and existed until 1850. Born, a very talented young
man, who, however, was rather too much in a hurry to become a big
political figure, fraternized with the most miscellaneous ragtag and
bobtail (Kreti und Plethi) in order to get a crowd together, and was
not at all the man who could bring unity into the discordant tenden-
cies, light into the chaos. Consequently, in the official publications
of the association the views represented in the Communist Mani-
* Revelations about the Trial of the Communists at Cologne. (Of. Karl Marx,
Selected Work*, Vol. II. pp. 20-21).— Ed.
444 V. I. LENIN
jesto are mingled hodge-podge with guild recollections and guild
aspirations, fragments of Louis Blanc and Proudhon, protectionism,
etc.; in short they desired to be all things to all men (Allen allea
sein). In particular, strikes, trade unions and producers9 co-opera-
tives were set going, and it was forgotten that what had to be done above
all was, by means of political victories, to conquer the field in which
alone such things could be lastingly realized. (Our italics.)
And when the victories of the reaction made the leaders of the Broth-
erhood realize the necessity of taking a direct part in the revolu-
tionary struggle, they were naturally left in the lurch by the confused
mass which they had grouped around themselves. Born took part
in the Dresden uprising in May 1849, and got away by pure luck.
But the Workers ' Brotherhood held aloof from the great political
movement of the proletariat, as a purely separate body which, to
a large extent, existed only on paper and played such asubordinate
role that the reaction found it necessary to suppress it only in 1850,
and its surviving branches many years later. Born, whose real name
should be Bu'termilch (buttermilk),* did not become a big political
figure but a petty Swiss professor, who no longer translates Marx into
guild language but the meek Renan into his own fulsome German."
That is how Engels judged the two tactics of Social-Democracy in the
democratic revolution!
Our new Isfcra-ites are also tending to "Economism," and with such un-
reasonable zeal as to earn the praises of the monarchist bourgeoisie for
their "seeing the light." They too collect around themselves a motley
crowd, flattering the Economists, demagogically attracting the undevel-
oped masses by the slogans of "self- activity," "democracy," "autonomy,"
etc., etc. Their labour unions, too, often exist only on the pages of the
braggart new Iskra. Their slogans and resolutions betray a similar failure
to understand the tasks of the "great political movement of the proletariat."
Originally published as a separate pamphlet
in August 1905, Geneva
* Bern's real name is Buttermilch. In translating Engels I made a mistake
in the first edition by taking the word Buttermilch to be not a proper noun but
a common noun. This mistake naturally afforded great delight to the Mensheviks.
Koltzov wrote that I had "rendered Engels more profound" (reprinted in Two
Yews, a collection of articles) and Plekhanov even now recalls this mistake in the
Tovarishch — in short, it afforded an excellent pretext to slur over the question of
the two tendencies in the working-class movement of 1848 in Germany, the tendency
of Born (akin to our Economists) and the Marxist tendency. To take advantage
of the mistake of an opponent, even if it was only on the question of Born's name,
is no more than natural. But to use a correction to a translation to slur over the
question of the two tactics is to dodge the real issue. (Author's note to the1 1908
edition. — Ed.) ^ 1 .
TWO TACTICS OF S.-D. IN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 445
NOTE TO CHAPTER 10 OF TWO TACTICS
Insert for §10.
1) We would remind the reader that in the polemics between the Iskra
and the Vperyod, the former referred among other things to Engels ' let-
ter to Turati, in which Engels warned the (future) leader of the Italian
reformists not to confuse the democratic with the Socialist revolution.
The impending revolution in Italy — wrote Engels about the political
situation in Italy in 1894 — will be a petty- bourgeois, democratic revolu-
tion and not a Socialist revolution. The Iskra reproached the Vperyod
with having departed from the principle laid down by Engels. This reproach
was unjustified, because the Vperyod (No. 14) fully acknowledged, in
general and on the whole, the correctness of Marx's theory on the difference
between the three main forces in the revolutions of the nineteenth cen-
tury. According to this theory, the following forces take a stand against
the old order, against the autocracy, feudalism and serfdom: 1) the liber-
al big bourgeoisie, 2) the radical petty bourgeoisie, 3) the proletariat.
The first fights for nothing more than a constitutional monarchy; the sec-
ond, for a democratic republic; the third, for a Socialist revolution. To
confuse the petty-bourgeois struggle for a complete democratic revolution
with the proletarian struggle for a Socialist revolution spells political
bankruptcy for a Socialist. Marx's warning to this effect is quite justified.
But it is for this very reason that the slogan "revolutionary communes"
is erroneous, because the very mistake committed by the communes that
have existed in history is that they confused the democratic icvolution
with the Socialist revolution. On the other hand, our slogan — a revolu-
tionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry — fully
safeguards us against this mistake. While recognizing the incontestably
bourgeois nature of the revolution, which is incapable of immediately
overstepping the bounds of a merely democratic revolution, our slogan
pushes forward this particular revolution and strives to mould it into
forms most advantageous to the proletariat; consequently, it strives to
make the very most of the democratic revolution in order to attain the
greatest success in the further struggle of the proletariat for Socialism.
Written in June- July 1905
First published in 1926
in the Lenin Miscellany, Vol. V
THE ATTITUDE OF SOCIAL.DEMOCRACY TOWARD
THE PEASANT MOVEMENT
The tremendous importance of the peasant movement in the democratic
revolution through which Russia is now passing has been repeatedly ex-
plained in the entire Social-Democratic press. As is well known, the Third
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. adopted a special resolution on this question
in order to define more exactly and to co-ordinate the activities of the whole
party of the class-conscious proletariat with regard to the peasant move-
ment of the present day. Despite the fact that the resolution was prepared
in advance (the first draft was published in the Vperyod No. 11, March 23
[10], 1905, despite the fact that it was carefully gone over at the Party Con-
gress, which took pains to formulate the views that had already been estab-
lished throughout the Russian Social-Democratic movement — in spite of
all this, the resolution has caused perplexity among a number of comrades
working in Russia. The Saratov Committee has unanimously declared this
resolution to be unacceptable (see the Proletary No. 10). Unfortunately,
the desire we expressed at the time, to receive an explanation of that ver-
dict, has not been satisfied as yet. We only know that the Saratov Com-
mittee has declared the agrarian resolution passed by the new Iskra Con-
ference also unacceptable — hence it is what is common to both resolutions
that dissatisfies them, and not what distinguishes one from the other.
New material on this question is provided by a letter we have received
from a Moscow comrade (issued in the form of a hectographed leaflet). We
print this letter in full:
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE
AND TO THE COMRADES WORKING IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS
Comrades I The regional organization of the Moscow Committee
has taken up work among the peasants. The lack of experience in or-
ganizing such work, the special conditions prevailing in the rural
districts of Central Russia, and also the lack of clarity in the direc-
tives contained in the resolutions of the Third Congress on this ques-
tion and the almost complete absence of material in the periodical
and other press on work among the peasantry, compel us to appeal to
the Central Committee to send us detailed directives , covering both
446
ATTITUDE OF S.-D. TOWARD PEASANT MOVEMENT 447
the principles and the practical questions involved, while we ask
you comrades who are doing similar work to acquaint us with the
practical knowledge your experience has given you.
We consider it necessary to inform you about the perplexity that
has arisen among us upon perusal of the resolution of the Third
Congress "on the attitude toward the peasant movement," and about
the organizational plan which we are already beginning to apply
in our work in the rural districts.
"§ a) To carry on propaganda among the broad strata of the people
to the effect that Social-Democracy sets itself the task of giving
most energetic support to all the revolutionary measures undertaken
by the peasantry that are capable of improving its position, including
confiscation of the land belonging to the landlords, the state, the
church, the monasteries, and the imperial family" (from the resolu-
tion of the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.).
First of all, it is not made clear in this paragraph how the Party
organizations will, or should, carry on their propaganda. Propaganda
requires, first and foremost, an organization which is very close to
those whom it is intended to propagandize. The question as to whether
this organization is to be committees consisting of the rural prole-
tariat, or whether other organizational means of conducting oral
and written propaganda may be adopted, is left open.
The same may be said of the promise to render energetic support.
To render support, and energetic support at that, is also possible
only if local organizations exist. The question of "energetic sup-
port" seems to us to be extremely hazy in general. Can Social-Democ-
racy support the expropriation of those landlords ' estates which are
farmed most intensively, using machinery, cultivating high grade
crops, etc.? The transfer of such estates to petty-bourgeois propri-
etors, however important it may be to improve their position, would
be a step back from the standpoint of the capitalist development
of the given estate. In our opinion, we, as Social-Democrats, should
have made a reservation on this point of "support": "provided the
expropriation of this land and its transference to peasant (petty-
bourgeois) ownership results in a higher form of economic develop-
ment on these estates."
Further:
"§ d) To strive for the independent organization of the rural
proletariat, for its fusion with the urban proletariat under the ban-
ner of the Social-Democratic Party, and for the inclusion of its rep-
resentatives in the peasant committees."
Doubts arise with regard to the latter part of this paragraph.
The fact is that the bourgeois-democratic organizations, such as the
"Peasant League," and reactionary-Utopian organizations, such
448 V. I. LENIN
as the Socialist- Revolutionaries, organize under their banner both
the bourgeois and the proletarian elements of the peasantry. By
electing our own representatives of the rural proletarian organizations
to such "peasant" committees, we shall be contradicting ourselves,
our view on entering a bloc, etc.
Here, too, we believe, amendments, and very serious ones, are
deeded.
These are a few general remarks on the resolutions of the Third
Congress. It is desirable to have these analysed as soon and in as
great detail as possible.
As regards the plan for a "rural" organization in our Regional
Organization, we are obliged to work under conditions which the
resolutions of the Third Congress wholly ignore. First of all, we must
note that the territory we cover — the Moscow Province and the ad-
joining uyezds of the neighbouring Provinces — is mainly an in-
dustrial area with a relatively undeveloped system of home indus-
tries and with a very small section of the population engaged exclu-
sively in agriculture. Huge textile mills, each employing 10,000 to
15,000 workers, are interspersed among small factories, employing
500 to 1,000 workers, and scattered in out-of-the-way hamlets and
villages. One would think that under such conditions Social-Democ-
racy would find a most favourable field for its activity here, but
facts have proved that such a superficial premise does not hold
water. Even now, in spite of the fact that some of the factories have
been in existence for 40-50 years, the overwhelming majority of our
"proletariat" has not become divorced from the land. The "village"
has such a strong hold over it, that none of the psychological and
other characteristics which a "pure" proletarian acquires in the
course of collective work develop among our proletarians. The
farming carried on by our "proletarians" is of a peculiar mongrel
type* A weaver employed in a factory hires an agricultural labourer
to till his patch of land. His wife (if she is not working in the factory),
his children, and the aged and invalid members of the family work
on this same piece of land, and he himself will work on it when he
becomes old or crippled, or is fired for violent or suspicious behaviour.
Such "proletarians" can hardly be called proletarians. Their
economic status is that of paupers. Their ideology is that of petty
bourgeois. They are ignorant and conservative. It is from these
that the "Black-Hundred" elements are recruited. Lately, however,
even among them class consciousness has begun to awaken. Using
"pure" proletarians as footholds, we are endeavouring to rouse
these ignorant masses from their age-long slumber, and not without
success. The footholds are increasing in number, and in places are
becoming firmer, the paupers are coming under our influence,
are beginning to adopt our ideology, both in the factory and in the
ATTITUDE OF S.-D. TOWARD PEASANT MOVEMENT 449
village. And we believe that it will not be unorthodox to form organ-
izations in an environment that is not "purely" proletarian. We
have no other environment, and if we were to insist on orthodoxy
and organize only the rural "proletariat," we would have to dissolve
our organizations and the organizations in the neighbouring districts.
We know we shall have difficulties in combating the burning desire
to expropriate the arable and other land neglected by the landlords,
or those lands which the holy fathers in hoods and cassocks have
not been able to farm properly. We know that bourgeois democracy,
from the "democratic"-monarchist faction (such a faction exists in
the Ruza Uyezd) down to the "Peasant" League, will fight us for
influence among the "paupers," but we shall arm the latter to oppose
the former. We shall make use of all the Social-Democratic forces in
the region, both intellectuals and proletarian workers, to set up and
consolidate our Social-Democratic committees of "paupers." And we
shall do this in accordance with the following plan. In each uyezd
seat, or big industrial centre, we shall set up uyezd committees of the
groups coming under the Regional Organization. The uyezd com-
mittee, in addition to setting up factory committees in its district,
will also set up "peasant" committees. For reasons of secrecy, these
committees should not have many people on them and should
consist of the most revolutionary and capable pauperized peasants.
In places where there are both factories and peasants — it is necessary
to organize workers and peasants in a single sub-group committee.
In the first place, such committees should have a clear and exact
idea of local conditions: A) The agrarian relationships: 1) Peasant
allotments, leases, form of tenure (communal, by households, etc.).
2) The local land: a) to whom it belongs; b) the amount of land;
c) what relation the peasants have to this land; d) on what terms the
land is held: 1) labour rent, 2) excessive rent for "otrezki," etc.;
e) indebtedness to kulaks, landlords, etc. B) Imposts, taxes, the
rate of assessment of peasant and landlord lands respectively.
C) Migratory and handicraft industries, passports, winter hiring,
etc. D) Local factories and plants: the working conditions in these:
1) wages, 2) working day, 3) the attitude of the management,
4) housing conditions, etc. E) The administration: the zenusky na-
chalniks, the village elder, the clerk, the volost judges, constables,
priest. F) The Zemstvo: the councillors representing the peasants,
the Zemstvo employees: the teacher, doctor, libraries, schools, tav-
erns. G) Volost assemblies: their composition and procedure.
H) Organizations: the "Peasant League," Socialist- Revolutionaries,
Social-Democrats .
Having acquainted itself with all this data, the Peasant Social-
Democratic Committee is obliged to get such decisions passed by the
assemblies as may be necessitated by any abnormal state of affairs.
29—685
450 V. I. LENIN
This committee should simultaneously carry on intense propaganda
and agitation for the ideas of Social-Democracy among the masses,
organize circles, impromptu meetings, mass meetings, distribute
leaflets and other literature, collect money for the Party and keep
in touch with the Regional Organization through the uyezd group.
If we succeed in setting up a number of such committees the success
of Social-Democracy will be assured.
Regional Organizer
It goes without saying that we shall not undertake the task of working
out the detailed practical directives to which the comrade refers: this is
a matter for the comrades on the spot and for the central body in Russia,
which is guiding the practical work. We propose to take the opportunity
presented by our Moscow comrade's interesting letter to explain the reso-
lution of the Third Congress and the urgent tasks of the Party in general.
It is obvious from the letter that the perplexity caused by the resolution
of the Third Congress is only partly due to theoretical doubt. The other
source is the ne n> question, which has not arisen before, about the inter-
relation between the "revolutionary peasant committees" and the '''Social-
Democratic Committees" which are working among the peasants. The very
fact that this question has been raised testifies to the great progress Social-
Democratic work among the peasants has made. Questions — relatively
speaking — of detail are now being forced to the front by the practical
requirements of "rural" agitation, which is becoming a fixed feature and
assuming stable, permanent forms. And the author of the letter keeps
forgetting that when he is blaming the Congress resolution for lack of
clarity, he is, in fact, seeking an answer to a question which the Congress
of the Party did not raise and could not have raised.
For instance, the author is not quite right when he says that both pro-
pagation of our ideas and support for the peasant movement are possible
"only" if we have our organizations in the particular localities. Of course
such organizations are desirable, and as the work increases they will become
necessary; but such work is possible and necessary even where no such organ-
izations exist. In all our activities, even when carried on exclusively
among the urban proletariat, we must never lose sight of the peasant
question and must broadcast the declaration made by the whole party
of the class-conscious proletariat as represented by the Third Congress,
namely, that we support the peasant uprising. The peasants must learn
this — from literature, from the workers, from special organizations,
etc. The peasants must learn that the Social-Democratic proletariat, in
giving this support, will not shrink from any form of confiscation of the
land (i.e., expropriation without compensation to the owners).
The author of the letter raises a theoretical question in this connection,,
viz., whether the demand for the expropriation of the big estates and their
ATTITUDE OF S.-D. TOWARD PEASANT MOVEMENT 451
transfer to "peasant, petty-bourgeois ownership" should not be circum-
scribed by a special reservation. But by proposing such a reservation the
author has arbitrarily limited the purport of the resolution of the
Third Congress. There is not a word in the resolution about the Social-
Democratic Party undertaking to support the transfer of the confiscated
land to petty-bourgeois proprietors. The resolution states: we support . . .
"including confiscation, "i.e., including expropriation without compensa-
tion, but the resolution does not in any way decide to whom the expropri-
ated land is to be given. It was not by chance that the question was left
open: it is obvious from the articles in the Vperyod (Nos. 11, 12, 15)
that it was deemed unwise to decide this question in advance. It was
stated there, for instance, that under a democratic republic Social-Democ-
racy cannot pledge itself and tie its hands with regard to the nationaliza-
tion of the land.
Indeed, unlike the petty-bourgeois Socialist- Revolutionaries, we lay
the main emphasis at the present time on the revolutionary-democratic
aspect of the peasant uprising and the special organization of the rural
proletariat into a class party. The crux of the question now is not schemes
of "Black Redistribution," or nationalization, but that the peasants rec-
ognize the need of a revolutionary break-up of the old order and that
they accomplish it. That is why the Socialist-Revolutionaries emphasize
"socialization," etc., while we lay stress on revolutionary peasant commit-
tees. Without the latter, say we, all change amounts to nothing. With them
and supported by them the victory of the peasant uprising is possible.
We must assist the peasant uprising in every way, including confiscation
of the land, but certainly not including all sorts of petty -bourgeois schemes.
We support the peasant movement, in so far as it is a revolutionary demo-
cratic movement. We are making ready (making ready at once, immedi-
ately) to fight against it in so far as it becomes reactionary and anti-prole-
tarian. The whole essence of Marxism lies in that double task, which only
those who do not understand Marxism can vulgarize or compress into a
single and simple task.
Let us take a concrete instance. Let us assume that the peasant uprising
has been victorious. The revolutionary peasant committees and the provi-
sional revolutionary government (relying, in part, on these very committees)
can proceed to the confiscation of any big property. We are in favour of
confiscation, as we have already declared. But to whom shall we recom-
mend that the confiscated land be given? On this question we have not tied
our hands nor shall we ever do so by declarations like those rashly proposed
by the author of the letter. The author of the letter has forgotten that the
resolution of the Third Congress speaks of "purging the revolutionary-demo-
cratic content of the peasant movement of all reactionary admixtures" — that
is one point — and, secondly, of the need "in all cases and under all circum-
stances for an independent organization of the rural proletariat." These are
our directives. There will always be reactionary admixtures in the peasant
29*
452 V. I. LENIN
movement, and we declare war on them in advance. Class antagonism
between the rural proletariat and the peasant bourgeoisie is unavoidable,
and we reveal it in advance, explain it and prepare for the struggle on the
basis of it. One of the immediate causes of such struggle may very likely be
the question: to whom shall the confiscated land be given, and how? We
do not gloss over that question, nor do we promise equal distribution,
"socialization," etc. What we do say is that this is a question we shall
fight out later on, fight again, on a new field and with other allies. Then,
we shall certainly be with the rural proletariat, with the entire work-
ing class against the peasant bourgeoisie. In practice, this may mean
the transfer of the land to the class of petty peasant proprietors — wher-
ever big estates based on bondage and feudal servitude still prevail,
where there are as yet no material prerequisites for large-scale Socialist
production; it may mean nationalization — provided the democratic
revolution is completely victorious; or the big capitalist estates may be
transferred to workers9 associations; for from the democratic revolution
we shall at once, and just in accordance with the measure of our strength,
the strength of the class-conscious and organized proletariat, begin to
pass to the Socialist revolution. We stand for uninterrupted revolution. We
shall not stop half way. The reason we do not now and immediately promise
all sorts of "socialization," is just because we know what is actually re-
quired for that task, and do not gloss over but reveal the new class struggle
that is maturing within the ranks of the peasantry.
At first we support the peasantry in general against the landlords,
support it to the end and by all means, including confiscation, and then (or
rather not "then," but at the same time) we support the proletariat against
the peasantry in general. To try now to calculate what the combination
of forces will be within the peasantry on "the morrow" of the revolution
(the democratic revolution) is sheer Utopia. Without descending to adven-
turism or going against our scientific conscience, without striving for cheap
popularity, we can and do say only one thing: we shall put every effort
into assisting the entire peasantry to make the democratic revolution,
in order thereby to make it easier for us, the Party of the proletariat, to
pass on, as quickly as possible, to the new and higher task — the Socialist
revolution. We hold forth no promises of harmony, equalization or "social-
ization" as a result of the victory of the present peasant uprising — on the
contrary, we "promise" a new struggle, new inequality, a new revolution,
toward which we are striving. Our doctrine is not as "sweet" as the fairy-
tales of the Socialist- Revolutionaries, but let whoever wants to be fed solely
on sweets join the Socialist- Revolutionaries; we shall say to such people:
good riddance.
In our opinion this Marxian standpoint also settles the question of the
committees. In our opinion there should be no Social- Democratic peasant
committees: if they are Social-Democratic that means they are not purely
peasant committees; if they are peasant committees that means they are
ATTITUDE OF S.-D. TOWARD PEASANT MOVEMENT 453
not purely proletarian, not Social-Democratic committees. There are many
who would fain confuse these two, but we are not of their number. Where-
ever possible we shall strive to set up our committees, committees of the
Social- Democratic Labour Party. They will be joined by peas ants, paupers,
intellectuals, prostitutes (a worker recently asked us in a letter why not
carry on agitation among the prostitutes), soldiers, teachers, workers — in
short, all Social- Democrats and none but Social- Democrats. These commit-
tees will conduct the whole of Social -Democratic work, in its entire scope
striving, however, to organize the rural proletariat separately and partic-
ularly, for the Social-Democratic Party is the class party of the proletari-
at. To consider it "unorthodox" to organize the proletariat which has not
entirely freed itself from various relics of the past is a great delusion and
we would like to think that the corresponding passages of the letter are
due to a mere misunderstanding. The urban and industrial proletariat will
inevitably be the basic nucleus of our Social-Democratic Labour Party,
but we must attract to it, enlighten and organize all toilers and all the
exploited, as is stated in our program — all without exception: handicrafts-
men, paupers, beggars, servants, tramps, prostitutes — of course, subject
to the necessary and obligatory condition that they join the Social-Dem-
ocratic movement and not that the Social -Democratic movement join
them, that they adopt the standpoint of the proletariat and not that the
proletariat adopt theirs.
The reader may ask — what is the point, then, of having revolutionary
peasant committees? Does this mean that they are not necessary? No, they
are necessary. Our ideal is: purely Social-Democratic committees in all
rural districts, and then agreements between them andaZZ the revolution-
ary-democratic elements, groups and circles of the peasantry for the pur-
pose of establishing revolutionary committees. There is a perfect analogy
here to the independence of the Social-Democratic Labour Party in the
cities and its alliance with all the revolutionary democrats for the purpose
of insurrection. We are in favour of a peasant uprising. We are absolutely
opposed to the mixing and merging of heterogeneous class elements and
heterogeneous parties. We hold that for the purpose of insurrection Social-
Democracy should give an impetus to the whole of revolutionary democracy,
should assist the whole of it to organize, should march shoulder to shoulder
with it, but without merging with it, to the barricades in the cities and
against the landlords and the police in the villages.
Proletary No. 16,
September 14 [1], 1905
THE LESSONS OF THE MOSCOW UPRISING
The publication of the book Moscow in December 1905 (Moscow, 1906)
could not have been more opportune. It is an essential task of the workers'
party to assimilate the lessons of the December uprising. Unfortunately,
this book is like a barrel of honey spoiled by a spoonful of tar: the most
interesting material — despite its incompleteness — and incredibly slov-
enly, incredibly trite conclusions. We shall deal with these conclusions
separately, and turn our attention now to the burning political question
of the day, to the lessons of the Moscow uprising.
The principal form of the December movement inMoscow was a peaceful
strike and demonstrations. The overwhelming majority of the worker
masses took an active part only in these forms of struggle. But it was the
December action inMoscow that convincingly proved that, as an indepen-
dent and predominant form of struggle the general strike is out of date,
that the movement is breaking these narrow bounds with elemental and
irresistible force and is giving rise to a higher form of struggle, uprising.
In declaring the strike, all the revolutionary parties, all the Moscow
unions, sensed and even realized that it must inevitably grow into an
uprising. On December 6 the Soviet of Workers' Deputies resolved to
"strive to transform the strike into an armed uprising." As a matter of fact,
however, none of the organizations were prepared for this. Even the Joint
Council of Fighting Squads (on December 9!) spoke of an uprising as
of something very remote, and it is quite evident that it had no hand
in or control of the street fighting that took place. The organizations
failed to keep pace with the growth and range of the movement.
The strike grew into an uprising, primarily as a result of the pressure
of the objective conditions that were created after October. The govern-
ment could no longer be taken by surprise by a general strike: it had al-
ready organized the counter-revolution, which was ready for military
action. The general course of the Russian revolution after October, and the
sequence of events in Moscow in the December days, have supplied striking
proof of one of the most profound propositions of Marx: revolution pro-
gresses by giving rise to a strong and united counter-revolution, i.e., it
compels the enemy to resort to more and more extreme measures of de-
fence and in this way devises more powerful means of attack.
454
LESSONS OF THE MOSCOW UPRISING 456
December 7 and 8: a peaceful strike, peaceful mass demonstra-
tions. Evening of the 8th: the siege of the Aquarium. The morning
of the 9th: the crowd on Strastnaya Square is attacked by the dragoons.
Evening: Fiedler's house is wrecked. Temper rises. The unorganized
street crowds, quite sporadically and hesitatingly, set up the first barricades.
The 10th: artillery fire is opened on the barricades and the crowds
in the streets. Barricades are set up more deliberately, and no longer in
isolated cases, but on a really mass scale. The whole population is in the
streets; all the main centres of the city are covered by a network of barri-
cades. For several days the fighting squads wage a stubborn guerilla fight
against the troops, which exhausts the troops and compels Dubasov to
beg for reinforcements. Only on December 15 does the superiority of
the government forces become complete, and on December 17 the
Semyenov regiment storms the Presnya District, the last stronghold of the
uprising.
From strike and demonstrations to isolated barricades. From isolated
barricades to the mass erection of barricades and street fighting against
the troops. Over the heads of the organizations, the mass proletarian strug-
gle developed from a strike to an uprising. This is the greatest historical
gain of the Russian revolution achieved in December 1905; and like all
preceding gains it was purchased at the price of enormous sacrifices. The
movement was raised from a general political strike to a higher stage. It
compelled the reaction to go to extremes in its resistance, and so brought
vastly nearer the moment when the revolution will also go to extremes in
the application of means of attack. The reaction cannot go further than
bombard barricades, houses and street crowds. But the revolution can go
ever so much further than the Moscow fighting squads; it can go very,
very much further in breadth and depth. And the revolution has advanced
far since December. The base of the revolutionary crisis has become
immeasurably broader — the blade must now be sharpened to a keener
edge.
The proletariat sensed the change in the objective conditions of the
struggle and the need for a transition from the strike to an uprising sooner
than its leaders. As is always the case, practice marched ahead of theory.
A peaceful strike and demonstrations immediately ceased to satisfy the
workers; they asked: what was to be done next? And they demanded more
resolute action. The instructions to set up barricades reached the districts
exceedingly late, when barricades were already being erected in the centre.
The workers set to in large numbers, but even this did not satisfy them;
they wanted to know: what was to be done next? — they demanded active
measures. In December we, the leaders of the Social-Democratic proletari-
at, behaved like a commander- in-chief who had arranged the disposition
of his troops in such an absurd way that most of them remained out
of action. The masses of the workers demanded, but failed to receive,
instructions for resolute mass action.
456 V. I. LENIN
Thus, nothing could be more short-sighted than Plekhanov's view, which
is seized upon by all the opportunists, that the strike was inopportune
and should not have been started, and that we "should not have taken
to arms." On the contrary, we should have taken to arms more resolutely,
energetically and aggressively; we should have explained to the masses that
it was impossible to confine ourselves to a peaceful strike and that a fear-
less and relentless armed fight was indispensable. And now we must at
last ogenly and publicly admit that political strikes are inadequate; we
must carry on the widest agitation among the masses in favour of an armed
uprising and make no attempt to obscure this question by talk about
"preliminary stages," or to befog it in any way. We would be deceiving
both ourselves and the people if we concealed from them the fact that the
impending revolutionary action must take the form of a desperate, bloody
war of extermination.
This is the first lesson of the December events. Another lesson refers
to the character of the uprising, the methods by which it is conducted,
and the conditions under which the troops come over to the side of the
people. On this, an extremely biassed view prevails in the Right wing
of our Party. It is alleged that it is impossible to fight modern troops;
the troops must become revolutionary. Of course, unless the revolution
assumes a mass character and also affects the troops, serious fighting is
out of the question. It is necessary, of course, to carry on work among the
troops. But we must not imagine that the troops will come over to our side
at one stroke, as it were, as a result of persuasion, or their own convictions.
The Moscow insurrection clearly proved how stereotyped and lifeless this
view is. As a matter of fact, the wavering of the troops, which is inevita-
ble in every truly popular movement, leads to a real fight for the troops
whenever the revolutionary struggle becomes more acute. The Moscow
uprising presented an example of the desperate, frantic struggle for the
troops that takes place between the reaction and the revolution. Duba-
sov himself declared that only five thousand out of the fifteen thousand
men of the Moscow garrison were reliable. The government restrained the
waverers by the most diverse and most desperate measures: they appealed
to them, flattered them, bribed them, presented them with watches, mon-
ey, etc.; they doped them with vodka, they lied to them, threatened
them, confined them to barracks and disarmed them; and those soldiers
who were suspected of being least reliable were removed by treachery and
violence. We must have the courage to confess openly and unreservedly that
in this respect we lagged behind the government. We failed to utilize the
forces at our disposal to wage an active, bold, resourceful and aggressive
fight for the wavering troops, like that successfully waged by the govern-
ment. We have carried on work in the army, and we will redouble our
efforts in the future to ideologically "win over" the army. But we shall prove
to be miserable pedants if we forget that at the moment of the uprising
• a physical fight for the army must be waged.
LESSONS OF THE MOSCOW UPRISING 467
In the December days the Moscow proletariat taught us magnificent
lessons in ideologically "winning over" the troops, as, for example, on
December 8 on Strastnaya Square, when the crowd surrounded the
Cossacks, mingled and fraternized with them, and persuaded them to turn
back. Or on December 10 in the Presnya District, when two working
girls, carrying a red flag in a crowd of 10,000 people, rushed out to meet
the Cossacks crying: "Kill usl We will not surrender the flag alive !"
And the Cossacks were disconcerted and galloped away amidst the shouts
of the crowd: "Hurrah for the Cossacks!" These examples of courage and
heroism should be impressed forever on the memory of the proletariat.
But here are examples of how we lagged behind Dubasov. On December
9 soldiers were marching down Bolshaya Serpukhovskaya Street singing
the Marseillaise, on their way to join the insurgents. The workers sent
delegates to meet them. Malakhov himself galloped at break-neck speed
towards them. The workers were too late. Malakhov reached them first.
He delivered a passionate speech, caused the soldiers to waver, surround-
ed them with dragoons, marched them oif to barracks and locked them in.
Malakhov reached the soldiers, we did not, although within two days,
150,000 men had risen at our call, and these could and should have organ-
ized the patrolling of the streets. Malakhov surrounded the soldiers with
dragoons, where as we failed to surround theMalakhovs with bomb- throwers.
We could and should have done this; and long ago the Social-Democratic
press (the old Iskrd) pointed out that it was our duty during an uprising
to exterminate ruthlessly all the civil and military chiefs. What took place
on Bolshaya Serpukhovskaya Street was repeated, apparently, in front of
the Nesvizhsky and Krutitsky Barracks, and when the workers attempted
to "call out" the Ekaterinoslav Regiment, and when delegates were sent
to the sappers in Alexandrov, and when the Rostov artillery on its way to
Moscow was turned back, and when the sappers were disarmed in Kolomna,
and so forth. When the uprising began we proved unequal to our task in the
fight for the wavering troops.
December confirmed another of Marx's profound propositions, which
the opportunists have forgotten, namely, that insurrection is an art,
and that the principal rule of this art is that an audacious and determined
offensive must be waged. We have not sufficiently assimilated this truth.
We have not sufficiently mastered this art, nor taught it to the masses,
this rule of attacking, come what may. We must make up for this with
all our energy. It is not enough to take sides on the question of political
slogans; we must take sides also on the question of armed insurrection.
Those who are opposed to it, those who do not prepare for it, must be ruth-
lessly dismissed from the ranks of the supporters of the revolution, sent
packing to its enemies, to the traitors or cowards; for the day is approach-
ing when the force of events and the conditions of the struggle will compel
us to separate enemies from friends according to this principle. We must not
preach passivity, nor advocate "waiting" until the troops "come over."
458 V. I. LENIN
No! We must proclaim from the housetops the need for a bold offensive
and armed attack, the necessity at such times of exterminating the persons
in command of the enemy, and of a most energetic fight for the wavering
troops.
The third great lesson taught by Moscow concerns tactics and the organi-
sation of the forces for insurrection. Military tactics are determined by
the level of military technique. This plain truth was dinned into the ears
of the Marxists by Engels. Military technique today is not what it was in
the middle of the nineteenth century. It would be folly to contend against
artillery in crowds and defend barricades with revolvers. Kautsky was
right when he wrote that it is high time now, after Moscow, to revise Engels '
conclusions, and that Moscow had inaugurated "new barricade tactics."
These tactics are the tactics of guerilla warfare. The organization required
for such tactics is that of mobile and exceedingly small units, units of ten,
three or even two persons. We often meet Social-Democrats now who snig-
ger whenever units of five or units of three are mentioned. But sniggering
is only a cheap way of ignoring the new question of tactics and or-
ganization called forth by street fighting under the conditions imposed
by modern military technique. Study carefully the story of the Moscow
uprising, gentlemen, and you will understand what connection exists
between "units of five" and the question of "new barricade tactics."
Moscow advanced these tactics, but failed to develop them far enough,
to apply them to any considerable extent, to a really mass extent. There
were too few units, the slogan of bold attack was not issued to the masses of
the workers and they did not apply it; the guerilla detachments were too
uniform in character, their arms and methods were inadequate, their
ability to lead the crowd was almost undeveloped. We must make up
for all this and we shall do so by learning from the experience of Moscow,
by spreading this experience among the masses and by stimulating their
creative efforts to develop this experience still further. And the guerilla
warfare and mass terror which have been going on in Russia everywhere
and almost continuously since December will undoubtedly help the masses
to learn the correct tactics to be applied during an uprising. Social-Democ-
racy must recognize this mass terror and incorporate it into its tactics,
organizing and controlling it, of course, subordinating it to the interests
and conditions of the labour movement and the general revolutionary
struggle, while eliminating and ruthlessly lopping off the "hooligan" per-
version of this guerilla warfare which was so magnificently and ruthlessly
suppressed by our Moscow comrades during the uprising and by the Letts
during the notorious Lettish republics.
Military technique has made new progress quite recently. The Japa-
nese war produced the hand grenade. The small arms factories have placed
automatic rifles on the market. Both these weapons are already being
successfully used in the Russian revolution, but to an inadequate extent.
We can and must take advantage of improvements in technique, teach the
LESSONS OF THE MOSCOW UPRISING 459
workers' units to make bombs in. large quantities, help them and our fight-
ing squads to obtain supplies of explosives, fuses and automatic rifles.
If the masses of the workers take part in uprisings in the towns, if mass
attacks are made upon the enemy, if a determined and skilful fight is
waged for the troops, who after the Duma, after Sveaborg and Kronstadt,
are wavering more than ever — and the participation of rural districts in the
general struggle is secured — victory will be ours in the next all- Russian
armed uprising.
Let us then more extensively develop our work and more boldly set our
tasks, while assimilating the lessons of the great days of the Russian revolu-
tion. The basis of our work is a correct estimate of class interests and of the
requirements of the nation 's development at the present time. Around the
slogan demanding the overthrow of the tsarist regime and the convocation
of a Constituent Assembly by a revolutionary government we are rallying
and shall continue to rally an increasing section of the proletariat, the
peasantry and the army. As hitherto, the basis and chief content of our
work is to develop the consciousness of the masses. But let us not forget
that, in addition to this general, constant and fundamental task, times like
the present in Russia impose other, particular and special tasks. Let us not
become pedants and philis tines, let us not evade these special tasks of the
moment, these special tasks of the given forms of struggle, by meaningless
references to our permanent duties, which remain the same in all times
and circumstances.
Let us remember that a great mass struggle is approaching. It will be an
armed uprising. It must, as far as possible, be simultaneous. The masses
must know that they are entering upon an armed, bloody and desperate
struggle. Contempt for death must become widespread among the masses and
ensure victory. The offensive against the enemy must be most energetic;
attack and not defence must become the slogan of the masses; the ruthless
extermination of the enemy will be their task; the organization of the
struggle will become mobile and flexible; the wavering elements among the
troops will be drawn into the active struggle. The party of the class-con-
scious proletariat must do its duty in this great struggle.
Proletary No. 2,
September 11 [August 29], 1906
THE BOYCOTT
The Left-wing Social -Democrats must reconsider the question of boycot-
ting the State Duma. It should be borne in mind that we have always
discussed this question concretely, and in connection with a definite polit-
ical situation. For instance, Proletary (Geneva) wrote that "it would be
ridiculous to foreswear making use even of the Bulygin Duma"* — if it
could be born.And in referring to the Witte Duma in the pamphlet The State
Duma and Social- Democracy, 1906 (by N.Lenin and F. Dan), N. Lenin
wrote: "We must discuss the question of tactics once again, in a business-
like manner. . . . The situation today is not what it was at the time of
the Bulygin Duma."
The principal difference between revolutionary Social-Democracy and
opportunist Social-Democracy on the question of boycott is as follows:
the opportunists in all circumstances confine themselves to applying the
stereotyped method copied from a specific period in the history of German
Socialism. We must utilize representative institutions; the Duma is a rep-
resentative institution; therefore boycott is anarchism, and we must go
into the Duma. All the arguments used by our Mensheviks, and espe-
cially by Plekhanov,on this topic, could be reduced to this childishly simple
syllogism. The Menshevik resolution on the importance of representative
institutions in a revolutionary epoch (see Partiniye Izvestia, No. 2) striking-
ly reveals the stereotyped and anti-historical nature of their argument.
The revolutionary Social-Democrats, on the contrary, emphasize the
necessity of carefully appraising the concrete political situation. It is
impossible to cope with the tasks of the revolutionary epoch in Russia by
copying in a biassed manner the latest German pattern, forgetting the
lessons of 1847-48. The progress of our revolution will be altogether in-
comprehensible if we confine ourselves to making bare contrasts between
"anarchist" boycott and Social-Democratic participation in elections.
Learn from the history of the Russian revolution, gentlemen!
This history has proved that the tactics of boycotting the Bulygin
Duma were the only correct tactics at that time, and were entirely jus-
tified by events. Whoever forgets this and argues about boycott without
* Cf. Lenin, "The Boycott of the Bulygin Duma and Insurrection," Selected
Works, Eng. ed., Vol. III.— Ed.
460
TffE BOYCOTT 461
taking the lessons of the Bulygin Duma into account (as the Mensheviks
always do) is certifying his own mental poverty, his inability to explain
and take into account one of the most important and eventful periods
of the Russian revolution. The tactics of boycotting the Bulygin Duma
were based on a correct appraisal of the temper of the revolutionary pro-
letariat and of the objective features of the situation, which made an im-
mediate general outbreak inevitable.
Let us pass on to the second lesson of history — to the Witte, Cadet
Duma. Nowadays we often hear Social-Democratic intellectuals making
repentant speeches about the boycott of that Duma. The fact that it did
assemble and undoubtedly rendered indirect service to the revolution
is considered to be sufficient reason for repentantly confessing that the
boycott of the Witte Duma had been a mistake.
Such a view, however, is extremely biassed and short-sighted. It fails
to take into consideration a number of very important facts of the period
prior to the Witte Duma, the period of its existence and the period after
its dissolution. Remember that the election law for that Duma was pro-
mulgated on December 11, at a time when the insurgents were wag-
ing an armed fight for a Constituent Assembly. Remember that even the
Menshe.vik "Nachalo" (Beginning) wrote at the time: "The proletariat
will also sweep away the Witte Duma just as it swept away the Bulygin
Duma." Under such circumstances the proletariat could not and should
not have surrendered to the tsar without a fight, the power to convene
the first representative assembly in Russia. The proletariat had to fight
against the strengthening of the autocracy by means of loans obtained
on the security of the Witte Duma. The proletariat had to combat the
constitutional illusions on which, in the spring of 1906, the election cam-
paign of the Cadets and the elections among the peasantry were entirely
based. At that time, when the importance of the Duma was being immeas-
urably exaggerated, the only means of combating such illusions was the
boycott. The degree to which the spread of constitutional illusions was
connected with participation in the election campaign and in the elec-
tions in the spring of 1906 is strikingly revealed by the attitude adopted
by our Mensheviks. Suffice it to recall that, in spite of the warnings of
the Bolsheviks, in the resolution of the Fourth (Unity) Congress of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party the Duma was referred to as a
"pon>er"\ Another instance: with complete self-assurance, Plekhanov wrote:
"The government will fall into the abyss if it dissolves the Duma." In reply
to him it was said at that time: we must prepare to push the enemy into
the abyss and not, like the Cadets, place hopes on its "falling" into the
abyss by itself. And how soon the words then uttered were proved correct!
It was the duty of the proletariat to exert every effort to preserve the
independence of its tactics in our revolution, namely: together with the
class-conscious peasantry against the vacillating and treacherous Liber-
al-monarchist bourgeoisie. But it was impossible to employ these tactics
462 V. I. LENIN
during the elections to the Witte Duma owing to a number of circum-
stances, both objective and sub jective, which, in the overwhelming major-
ity of localities in Russia, would have made participation in the elections
tantamount to the workers' party tacitly supporting the Cadets. The pro-
letariat could not and should not have adopted half-hearted and artificial-
ly concocted tactics, prompted by "cunning" and consternation, of elec-
tions for an unknown purpose, of elections to the Duma, but not for the
Duma. And yet it is a historical fact, which the silence, subterfuges and
evasions of the Mensheviks cannot remove, that not one of them, not even
Plekhanov, dared advocate in the press that we should go into the Duma.
It is a fact that not a single call was issued in the press to go into the Du-
ma. It is a fact that the Mensheviks themselves, in the leaflet issued by
, the Joint Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., officially recognized the
boycott and confined the dispute only to the question of the stage at which
the boycott was to be adopted. It is a fact that the Mensheviks laid em-
phasis, not on the elections to the Duma, but on the elections as such,
and even on the process of electing as a means of organizing for insurrec-
tion and for sweeping away the Duma. Events proved, however, that it
was impossible to carry on mass agitation during the elections, and that
the Duma alone provided certain opportunities for carrying on agitation
among the masses.
Whoever really makes an effort to consider and weigh all these com-
plicated facts, both objective and subjective, will see that the Caucasus
was but an exception which proved the general rule. He will see that con-
trite speeches and explaining away the boycott as a piece of "youthful
impetuousness" reveal an extremely narrow, superficial and short-sighted
estimation of events.
The dissolution of the Duma has now clearly demonstrated that in
the conditions prevailing in the spring of 1906 the boycott, on the whole,
was the right tactics and that it was useful. Under the conditions which
then prevailed, only by means of the boycott could the Social-Democrats
fulfil their duty of giving the people the necessary warning against the
tsar's constitution and supplying the necessary criticism of the chicanery
of the Cadets during the elections; and both (warning and criticism) were
strikingly substantiated by the dissolution of the Duma.
Here is a small instance to illustrate the above. In the spring of 1906,
Mr. Vodovozov, who is half-Cadet and half-Menshevik, was wholehearted-
ly in favour of participating in the elections and supporting the Cadets.
Yesterday (August 11) he wrote inTovarishch* that the Cadets "want-
ed to be a parliamentary party in a country that has no parliament and
a constitutional party in a country that has no constitution"; that "the
* Tovarishch (Comrade) — a newspaper published with the close collaboration
of Prokopovich and Kuskova, former "Economists." It played the part of "Left"
wing of the Cadets. — Ed.
THE BOYCOTT 46S
whole character of the Cadet Party has been determined by the funda-
mental contradiction that exists between a radical program and quite
non-radical tactics."
The Bolsheviks could not desire a greater triumph than this admis-
sion on the part of a Left Cadet or Right-wing Plekhanovite.
However, while absolutely rejecting faint-hearted and short-sighted
speeches of repentance, as well as the siliy explanation of the boycott
as "youthful impetuousness," we do not by any means reject the new lessons
of the Cadet Duma. It would be mere pedantry to hesitate openly to admit
these new lessons and take them into account. History has shown that
when the Duma assembles opportunities arise for carrying on useful agi-
tation both from within the Duma and, in connection with it, out-
side— that the tactics of joining forces with the revolutionary peasantry
against the Cadets can be applied in the Duma. This may seem paradoxic-
al, but such, undoubtedly is the irony of history: it was the Cadet Duma
that clearly demonstrated to the masses the correctness of what we might
briefly describe as "anti-Cadet" tactics. History has ruthlessly confuted
all constitutional illusions and all "faith in the Duma"; but history
has undoubtedly proved that that institution is of some, though modest,
use to the revolution as a platform for agitation, for exposing the true
"nature" of the political parties, etc.
Hence, the conclusion: It would be ridiculous to shut our eyes to real-
ities. The time has now come when the revolutionary Social-Democrats
must cease to be boycottists. We shall not refuse to go into the Second
Duma when (or "if") it is convened. We shall not refuse to utilize this are-
na, but we shall not exaggerate its modest importance; on the contrary,
guided by the experience already provided by history, we shall entirely
subordinate the struggle we wage in the Duma to another form of struggle,,
namely, strikes, insurrection, etc. We will call the Fifth Congress of the
Party; there we will resolve that in the event of elections taking place,
it will be necessary to enter into an election agreement, for a few weeks,
with the Trudoviks (unless the Fifth Party Congress is convened it will
be impossible to conduct a united election campaign; and "blocs with
other parties" are absolutely prohibited by the decision of the Fourth
Congress). And then we shall utterly rout the Cadets.
This conclusion, however, does not by any means reveal the whole
complexity of the task that confronts us. We deliberately emphasized the
words: "in the event of elections taking place," etc. We do not know yet
whether the Second Duma will be convened, when the elections will take
place, what the electoral laws will be like, or what the situation will be at
that time. Hence, our conclusion suffers from being extremely general:
we need it to enable us to sum up past experience, to take note of the les-
sons of the past, to put the forthcoming questions of tactics on a proper
basis; but it is totally inadequate for solving the concrete problems of
immediate tactics.
464 V. I. LENTO
Only Cadets and "like-Cadets" of all sorts can be satisfied with such
a conclusion at the present time, can create "slogans" for themselves out
of yearnings for a new Duma and try to persuade the government of the
desirability of convening it at the earliest date, etc. Only conscious or
unconscious traitors to the revolution would at the present time exert
all efforts to divert the inevitable new tide of temper and excitement in-
to the channel of an election and not into that of a fight waged by means
of a general strike and uprising.
This brings us to the crux of the question of present-day Social-Demo-
cratic tactics. The issue now is not whether we should take part in the elec-
tions. To say "yes" or "no" in this case means saying nothing at all about
the fundamental problem of the moment. Outwardly, the political situa-
tion in August 1906 is similar to that in August 1905, but enormous prog-
ress has been made during this period: the forces that are fighting on the
respective sides, the forms of the struggle, as well as the time required
for carrying out this or that strategical move — if we may so express it —
have become more exactly defined.
The government's plan is clear. It is absolutely right in its calcula-
tions when it fixes the date of the convocation of the Duma and does not
fix — contrary to the lan> — the date of the elections. The government does
not want to tie its hands or show its cards. Firstly, it is gaining time in
which to consider the amendment of the election law. Secondly — and
this is the most important — it is keeping the date of the elections in
reserve until the character and intensity of the new rise of temper can be
fully gauged. The government wishes to fix the date of the elections
at the particular time (and perhaps in the particular form, i.e., the form
of elections) when it can split and paralyse the incipient uprising. The
government's reasoning is correct: if things remain quiet perhaps we
shall not convene the Duma at all, or revert to the Bulygin laws. If,
however, a strong movement arises, then perhaps we shall try to split
it by fixing a provisional date for the elections and in this way entice
certain cowards and simpletons away from the direct revolutionary
struggle.
Liberal blockheads (see Tovarishch and Bech) so utterly fail to under-
stand the situation that they are of their own accord crawling into the net
set by the government. They are trying with might and main "to prove"
the need for the Duma and the desirability of diverting the rising tide into
the channel of an election. But even they cannot deny that the question
of what form the impending struggle will assume is still an open one.
Today's issue of Rech (August 12) admits:
"What the peasants will say in the autumn ... we cannot tell
as yet. ... It will be difficult to make any general forecasts until
September-October, when the temper of the peasantry is definitely
revealed."
TOE BOYCOTT 466
The Liberal bourgeoisie remain true to their nature. They do not
want to assist actively in choosing the form of the struggle and in mould-
ing the temper of the peasants one way or another, nor are they capable
of doing so. The interests of the bourgeoisie demand, not that the old re-
gime be overthrown, but merely weakened, and that a Liberal Cabinet be
formed.
The interests of the proletariat demand the complete overthrow of the
old, tsarist regime and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly with
full power. Its interests demand the most active intervention in moulding
the temper of the peasants, in choosing the most resolute forms of strug-
gle, as well as th: best moment for it. On no account must we withdraw,
or obscure, the slogan: convocation of a Constituent Assembly by revo-
lutionary means, i.e., through the medium of a provisional revolutionary
government. We must concentrate our efforts on explaining the conditions
of insurrection: that it must be combined with the strike movement; that
all the revolutionary forces must be rallied and prepared for it, etc. We
must resolutely take the path that was indicated in the well-known mani-
festos,"To the Army and Navy" and "To All the Peasants," which were
signed by the "bloc" of all revolutionary organizations, including the Tru-
dovik group. Lastly, we must take special care that the government does
not under any circumstances succeed in splitting, stopping, or weakening
the incipient uprising by ordering elections. In this respect the lessons
of the Cadet Duma must be absolutely binding for us, viz., the lessons
that the Duma campaign is a subordinate and secondary form of struggle,
and that, owing to the objective conditions of the moment, the direct
revolutionary movement of the masses of the people still remains the
principal form of struggle.
Of course, the tactics of subordinating the Duma campaign to the main
struggle, of assigning a secondary role to that campaign, keeping it in
reserve for the contingency of an unfavourable outcome of the battle,
or of the postponement of the battle until experience of the Second Duma
is obtained — such tactics may, if you like, be described as the old boycott
tactics. On formal grounds this description might be justified, because,
apart from the work of agitation and propaganda, which is always obliga-
tory, "preparation for elections" consists of minute technical preparations,
which can very rarely be made a long time before the elections. We do
not want to argue about words; in substance, these tactics are the logi-
cal development of the old tactics, but not a repetition of them; they
are a deduction drawn from the last boycott, but not the last boycott
itself.
To sum up. We must take into account the experience of the Cadet
Duma and spread its lessons among the masses. We must prove to them
that the Duma is "unfit," that the Constituent Assembly is essential,
that the Cadets are wavering; we must demand that the Trudoviks throw
off the yoke of the Cadets, and we must support the former against the
30—685
466 Y. I. LENIIf
latter. We must recognize at once the need for an election agreement be-
tween the Social-Democrats and the Trudoviks in the event of new elec-
tions taking place. We must exert all our efforts to counteract the govern-
ment 's plan to split the uprising by ordering elections. Advocating their
tried revolutionary slogans with greater energy than ever, Social-Demo-
crats must exert every effort to rally all the revolutionary elements and
classes more closely, to convert the upsurge which is very probable in
the ne,ar future into an armed uprising of the whole of the people against
the tsarist government.
Proletary No. 1,
September 3 [August 21], 1906
THE LESSONS OF THE REVOLUTION
Five years have elapsed since the working class of Russia, in October
1905, dealt the first mighty blow to the tsarist autocracy. In those great
days the proletariat aroused millions of toilers to struggle against their
oppressors. In the space of a few months of that year the proletariat won
improvements for which the workers had been waiting for decades in
vain from "the powers that be." The proletariat won for the whole Rus-
sian people, if only for a short time, something that Russia had never known
before — freedom of the press, assembly and association. It swept Bulygin's
fake Duma from its path, extracted from the tsar a manifesto proclaiming
a constitution and made it impossible once and for all for Russia to be
ruled withqut representative bodies.
But the great victories of the proletariat proved to be only half- victories
because the tsarist regime was not overthrown. The December uprising
ended in defeat and the tsarist autocracy began to deprive the working
class of what it had won, deprive it of one gain after another as its offen-
sive weakened, as the struggle of the masses began to grow weaker. In
1906 workers' strikes, peasants' and soldiers' outbreaks were much weaker
than they had been in 1905 but were still very formidable, nonetheless.
The tsar dispersed the First Duma during which the militancy of the people
had begun to mount again, but did not dare to change the electoral law
all at once. In 1907 the struggle of the workers grew weaker still, and the
tsar, dispersing the Second Duma, staged a coup d'etat (June 3, 1907);
he broke all the most solemn promises that he had made not to promulgate
laws without the consent of the Duma and changed the electoral law in
such a way that the landowners and the capitalists, the party of the Black-
Hundred elements and their servitors were assured of a majority in the
Duma.
But the victories and the defeats in the revolution taught the Russian
people great historical lessons. While we are honouring the fifth anniver-
sary of 1905, let us try to elucidate the sum and substance of these les-
sons.
The first and main lesson is that only the revolutionary struggle of the
masses can bring about worthwhile improvements in the lives of the work-
ers and in the administration of the state. No "sympathy" for the work-
30* 4G7
468 V. I. LENIN
crs on the part of educated people, no struggle of lone terrorists, however
heroic, could do anything to undermine the tsarist autocracy and the
omnipotence of the capitalists. This could be achieved only by the struggle
waged by the workers themselves, only by the combined struggle of mil-
lions, and when this struggle grew weaker the workers immediately began
to be deprived of what they had won. The Russian revolution was confir-
mation of the sentiments expressed in the song of international labour:
"No saviour from on high deliver,
No trust have we in prince or peer;
Our own right hand the chains must shiver,
Chains of hatred, greed and fear!"
The second lesson is that it is not enough to undermine and restrict
the power of the tsar. It must be destroyed. Until the tsarist regime is de-
stroyed concessions won from the tsar will never be durable. The tsar made
concessions when the tide of the revolutionary offensive was rising.
When it ebbed, he took them all back. Only a democratic republic, the
overthrow of the tsarist regime, the passage of power into the hands of
the people can deliver Russia from the violence and tyranny of officialdom,
from the Black-Hundred-Octobrist Duma, from the despotic power which
the landowners and their servitors wield over the countryside. If the mis-
eries of the peasants and the workers have become even harder to bear
now, after the revolution, this is the price they are paying for the fact
that the revolution was weak, that the tsarist regime was not over-
thrown. The year 1905, then the first two Dumas, and their dissolution,
taught the people a lot, taught them above all to fight in common for
political demands. At first, upon awakening to political life, the people
demanded concessions from the autocracy: that the tsar should convene
a Duma, that he should appoint new ministers in place of the old, that the
tsar should "grant" universal suffrage. But the autocracy did not and
could not agree to such concessions. The autocracy answered the requests
for concessions with bayonets. And then the people began to realize
that they would have to fight against the autocratic regime. Now, we may
say, this understanding is being driven even more drastically into the
heads of the peasants by Stolypin and the black-reactionary noblemen's
Duma. Yes, they are driving it in and they'll drive it right home too.
The tsarist autocracy has also learned a lesson from the revolution.
It has Seen that it cannot rely on the faith of the peasants in the tsar. It
is now strengthening its power by forming an alliance with the Black-
Hundred landowners and the Octobrist industrialists. To overthrow the
tsarist autocracy, the revolutionary mass struggle will now require much
greater momentum than in 1905.
Is it possible to gain this much greater momentum? The reply to this
question brings us to the third and cardinal lesson of the revolution. This
LESSONS OF THE REVOLUTION 469
lesson consists in our having seen just how the various classes of the Rus-
sian people act. Prior to 1905 many thought that the whole people as-
pired to freedom in the same way and wanted the same freedom; at least
the great majority had no clear understanding of the fact that the differ-
ent classes of the Russian people had different views on the struggle for
freedom and were not striving for the same freedom. The revolution dis-
pelled the mist. At the end of 1905, then later during the First and Second
Dumas, all classes of Russian society came out openly. They showed them-
selves in action, revealing what their true ambitions were, what they
could fight for and how strongly, persistently and vigorously they were
able to fight.
The factory workers, the industrial proletariat waged a most implacable
and strenuous struggle against the autocracy. The proletariat began the
revolution with the Ninth of January and mass strikes. The proletariat
carried this struggle to its uttermost limit, rising in armed insurrection
inDecember 1905 in defence of the bullet-riddled, knouted and tormented
peasantry. The number of workers who went on strike in 1905 was
about three million (and with the railwaymen, post-office employees,
etc., probably reached four million), in 1906 — one million, in 1907 — three-
quarters of a million. The world had never yet seen a strike movement
raised to such a pitch. The Russian proletariat showed what untold forces
there are in the working-class masses when a real revolutionary crisis
matures. The strike wave of 1905, the greatest ever known in history,
did not exhaust all the militant forces of the proletariat by a long way.
For instance, in the Moscow factory region there were 567,000 fac-
tory workers while the number of strikers was 540,000, whereas in the
St. Petersburg factory region which has 300,000 factory workers there were
a million strikers. This means that the workers in the Moscow district
were still far from developing the same militance in the struggle as the
St. Petersburg workers. In the Livonian province (city of Riga) there were
250,000 strikers to the 50,000 workers employed there. In other words
each worker on the average struck more than five times in 1905. Now,
in all parts of Russia, there cannot possibly be less than three million
factory, mining and railway workers and this number is growing year
by year. With a movement as strong as in Riga in 1905 they could turn
out an army of 15 million strikers.
No tsarist regime could withstand such an onset. But everybody un-
derstands that such an onset cannot be evoked artificially in accordance
with the desires of the Socialists or progressive workers. Such an onset
is possible only when the whole country is convulsed with crisis, mass
indignation and revolution. In order to prepare such an onset we must
draw the most backward sections of the workers into the struggle, we
must devote years and years to persistent, widespread, unflagging propa-
ganda, agitation and organizational work, building up and reinforcing
proletarian unions and organizations in every form.
470 V. I. LENIN
In militance the working class of Russia stood in the forefront of all
the other classes of the Russian people. The very conditions of their
lives make the workers capable of struggle and impel them to struggle.
Capital concentrates the workers in great masses in big cities, cohering
them together, teaching them to act in conjunction. At every step the
workers come face to face with their main enemy—the capitalist class.
In combat with this enemy the worker becomes a Socialist, comes to realize
the necessity of a complete reconstruction of the whole social structure,
the complete abolition of all poverty and all oppression. Becoming Social-
ists the workers fight with self- abnegating courage against everything
that stands in their path, first and foremost the tsarist regime and the
feudal landlords.
The peasants too during the revolution entered the struggle against
the landowners and against the government, but their struggle was much
weaker. It is established that a majority of the factory workers (about three-
fifths) took part in the revolutionary struggle, in strikes, while undoubted-
ly, only a minority of the peasants took a part: in all probability not more
than one-fifth or one-fourth. The peasants fought less persistently, more
disconnectedly, less politically, at times still pinning their hopes on the
benignity of the tsar little-father. In 1905-06 the peasants, properly speak-
ing, only gave the tsar and the landlords a bit of a fright. But frighten-
ing them is no use. They must be destroyed, their government — the tsar-
ist government — must be wiped off the face of the earth. Now Stoly-
pin and the Black, landocratic Duma are trying to create new gentlemen
farmers from the ranks of the rich peasants, to be the allies of the tsar
and the Black-Hundred. But the more the tsar and the Duma help the
rich peasants to ruin the mass of the peasantry, the more apperceptivc
does this mass become, the less faith will it preserve in the tsar, the faith
of feudal slaves, the faith of benighted and ignorant people. Each year
that passes swells the ranks of the agricultural labourers in the country-
side, they have nowhere to seek salvation except in an alliance with the
urban workers for joint action. Each year that passes fills the country-
side with ruined peasants, utterly destitute, driven to desperation by
hunger. When the urban proletariat rises again, millions upon millions
of these peasants will throw themselves into the struggle against the tsa-r
and the landowners with greater determination and solidarity.
The bourgeois liberals too took part in the revolution, i.e., the liberal
landowners, industrialists, lawyers, professors, etc. They constitute the
party of "people's freedom" (the Constitutional Democrats or Cadets).
They were lavish in their promises to the people and made a lot of noise
about freedom in their newspapers^ They had a majority in the First
and Second Dumas. They held out a promise of gaining freedom by
"peaceful means," they deprecated the revolutionary struggle of the workers
and peasants. The peasants and many of the peasant deputies ("Trudoviks")
believed these promises and followed humbly and obediently at the heels
LESSONS OF THE REVOLUTION 471
of the liberals, steering clear of the revolutionary struggle of the proleta-
riat. This was the greatest mistake committed by the peasants (and a lot
of townfolk) during the revolution. With one hand, and at that very rare-
ly, the Liberals assisted the struggle for freedom while they kept offering
the other hand to the tsar, promising to preserve and strengthen his power,
to make peace between the peasants and the landlords, to "pacify" the
"turbulent" workers.
When the revolution came to the point of a pitched battle with the tsar,
the December uprising of 1905, the liberals in a body basely betrayed the
freedom of the people and recoiled from the struggle. The tsarist autocracy
took advantage of this betrayal of the people's freedom by the liberals,
took advantage of the ignorance of the peasants who to a large extent be-
lieved the liberals and defeated the insurgent workers. And when the prole-
tariat was defeated no Dumas, no blandishments and fair promises of the
Cadets could hold back the tsar from abolishing all the vestiges of freedom
and restoring the suzerainty and despotic power of the feudal landlords.
The liberals found themselves deceived. The peasants have re-
ceived a severe, but useful lesson. There will be no freedom in Russia as
long as the broad masses of the people believe in the liberals, believe in the
possibility of "peace" with the tsarist regime and stand aloof from the
revolutionary struggle of the workers. No power on earth can hold back
the advent of freedom in Russia when the mass of the urban proletariat
rises in struggle, brushes aside the wavering and treacherous liberals,
enlists under its banner the rural labourers and impoverished peasantry.
And that the proletariat of Russia will rise in such a struggle, that it
will take the lead in the revolution again is warranted by the whole econom-
ic situation of Russia, all the experience of the revolutionary years.
Five years ago the proletariat dealt the first blow to the tsarist autoc-
racy. The first rays of freedom gleamed for the Russian people. Now the
tsarist autocracy has been restored to its old self, the feudal lords are
reigning and ruling again, the workers and peasants are everywhere being
crushed down again, everywhere the Asiatic despotism of the authorities
and infamous maltreatment of the people. But these hard lessons will
not have been in vain. The Russian people are not what they were prior
to 1905. The proletariat has taught them to fight. The proletariat will
bring them to victory.
Rabochaya Gazeta No. 1,
November 12 [October 30], 1910
THE PERIOD
OF THE STOLYPIN REACTION
THE BOLSHEVIKS CONSTITUTE
THEMSELVES AN INDEPENDENT
MARXIST PARTY
POLITICAL NOTES
The chauvinists are hard at work. Persistent rumours are being spread
that the Japanese are arming, that they have concentrated 600 battal-
ions in Manchuria for an attack on Russia. Turkey is alleged to be actively
arming with the intention of declaring war on Russia this very spring.
A revolt is said to be hatching in the Caucasus with the object of breaking
away from Russia (all that is lacking is an outcry about the plans of the
Poles!). Feeling against Finland is being worked up by tales that she is
arming. A bitter campaign is being conducted against Austria over the
building of a railway in Bosnia. The attacks of the Russian press on Ger-
many, who is supposed to be inciting Turkey against Russia, are gaining in
virulence. The campaign is being carried on not only in the Russian but
also in the French press — whose bribery by the Russian government we
were so opportunely reminded of recently by a Social -Democrat in the
Duma.
The serious bourgeois press of the West refuses to regard this campaign
as a figment of the imagination of journalists or the affair of sensation-
mongers. No, evidently the cue has quite definitely been given by the
"ruling circles" — in other words, by the Black-Hundred tsarist govern-
ment, or a secret court gang like the notorious "Star Chamber," some
systematic "line" is being pursued; some "new course" has been adopted.
The foreign press traces a direct connection between this chauvinistic
campaign and the fact that the doors of the Duma Committee of State
Defence have been closed to all members of the Duma not belonging to
that committee, i.e., not only to the revolutionary parties but also to' the
Cadets; it is even said that the Russian government, as a crowning token
of its contempt for "constitutionalism," intends to apply for credits
for frontier fortifications not to the whole Duma, but only to the Black-
Hundred-Octobrist committee.
Here are a few quotations from European newspapers, newspapers which
are anything but Socialist and which cannot be suspected of optimism with
regard to the Russian revolution:
"The German victories over France (in 1870), as Bismarck
once remarked, fired the ambition of the Russian military, a'nd
they also reached out for martial laurels. For political, religious
475
476 V. I. LENIN
and historical reasons, Turkey seemed a most suitable object for
this purpose (the war with Turkey of 1877-78). Evidently, the same
views are held today by certain Russian circles who have forgotten
the lessons of the Japanese war and who do not understand the true
needs of the country. As there are no more 'brothers' to liberate
in the Balkans, they have to devise other means of influencing Rus-
sian public opinion. And these means, to tell the truth, are even
more clumsy than those of that time: it is being made out that Rus-
sia is surrounded by internal and external foes."
"Russia's ruling circles want to try to bolster up their position
by the old methods of forcibly suppressing the movement for eman-
cipation and diverting public attention from the deplorable situa-
tion at home by arousing nationalist sentiments and stirring up
diplomatic conflicts, which will end nobody knows how."
What is the significance of this new chauvinistic line and policy of the
counter-revolutionary autocracy? After Tsushima and Mukden, only peo-
ple from under whose feet the ground is definitely slipping can venture
on such a policy. The experience of two years of reaction, notwithstanding
all efforts, has not created any at all reliable support within the country
for the Black-Hundred autocracy, nor any new class elements capable
of rejuvenating the autocracy economically. And without this no counter-
revolutionary brutalities or frenzy can save the present political system
in Russia.
Stolypin, the Black-Hundred landlords, and the Octobrists all un-
derstand that without creating new class backings for themselves they
cannot remain in power. Hence their policy of utterly ruining the peas-
ants and forcibly breaking up the village communes in order to clear
the way for capitalism in agriculture at all costs. The Russian liberals,
the most learned, the most educated and the most "humane" of them —
like the professors of the Russkiye Vyedomosti — prove to be incompar-
ably more stupid in this respect than the Stolypins. "It would not be
surprising," says the editorial in the February 1st issue of this newspa-
per, "if in deciding, for instance, the fate of the November provisional reg-
ulations, yesterday's Slavophile village-commune enthusiasts support
the attempt of the Ministry to destroy the village communes by assign-
ing land to individual householders as their private property. ... It
may even be assumed that the defensive aims common to the conserva-
tive majority in the Duma and to the Ministry will suggest to both meas-
ures even more aggressive than the celebrated ukazes of 1906. . . . We
get an amazing picture: the conservative government, with the support
of representatives of the conservative parties, are preparing to carry
out a radical reform of agrarian relations — which are the least amenable
POLITICAL NOTES 477
to drastic changes — and are deciding upon so radical a measure from
abstract considerations as to the preferability of one form of ownership
to another."
Wake up, mister professor I Shake off the mustiness of old-fashioned Na-
rodism, and take a look at what has been done by two years of revolution.
Stolypin vanquished you not only by physical force, but also by the
fact that he correctly understood the most practical need of economic
development, namely, the forcible break-up of the old form of land-
ownership. The great "advance" which has already been irrevocably accom-
plished by the revolution consists in the fact that formerly the Black-
Hundred autocracy could rely upon the support of mediaeval forms of
landowners hip, but that now it is compelled — positively and irrevocably
compelled — to work for their destruction with feverish speed. For it
has understood that without the break-up of the old agrarian order there
nan be no escape from the contradiction which most profoundly of all
explains the Russian revolution — to wit: the most backward system
of landownership and the most god-forsaken peasantry, on the one
hand, and the most advanced industrial and finance capital, on the
other I
"So you are for the Stolypin agrarian legislation?" the Narodniks will
ask us in horror. — Oh, no. Calm yourselves! We are unreservedly op-
posed to all the old forms of landownership in Russia — both manorial and
peasant allotment. We are unreservedly in favour of a forcible break-up
of this rotten and decaying antiquity which poisons everything new.
We are in favour of the bourgeois nationalization of the land, as the sole
consistent slogan of the bourgeois revolution, and as the sole practical
measure which will direct the entire edge of the historically-essential
break-up against the landlords by helping to crystallize out from the
peasant mass free owners on the land.
The distinguishing feature of the Russian bourgeois revolution is
the fact that a revolutionary policy on the main question of the revolu-
tion— the agrarian question — is being pursued by the Black-Hundreds
and by the peasants and workers. The liberal lawyers and professors,
on the other hand, are advocating something that is absolutely lifeless,
absurd and Utopian — namely a reconciliation of two antithetical and
mutually-exclusive methods of breaking up what has become obsolescent,
and a reconciliation, moreover, which will mean that there will be no
break-up at all. Either a victory for the peasant revolt and the complete
break-up of the old landowning system in favour of a peasantry refash-
ioned by the revolution — in other words, confiscation of the landed
estates and a republic; or a Stolypin break-up, which also refashions —
refashions and adapts, in fact, the old landowning system to capitalist
relationships — but only entirely in the interests of the landlords and at
the price of the utter ruin of the peasant masses, their forcible ejection
from the countryside, eviction, starvation, and the extermination of the
4?8 V. I. LENIN
flower of the peasant youth with the help of jails, exile, shooting and
torture. For a minority to carry out such a policy against the majority
would not be easy, but economically it is not impossible. We must help
the people to realize this clearly. But the attempt to escape from that
utterly tangled skein of mediaeval contradictions which has been created
by centuries of Russian history by means of a neat little reform, peace-
fully and without violence, is the stupidest dream of an inveterate "man
in the* muffler." Economic necessity will certainly call for, and will cer*
tainly bring about a most "drastic change" in Russia's agrarian system.
The historical question is whether it will be carried out by the landlord?,
led by the tsar and Stolypin, or by the peasant masses, led by the pro-
letariat.
"Union of the opposition" — such is the topic of discussion in the en*
tire Russian political press today. Stolypin 's police-controlled Rossiya
is jubilant. "Union? — that means that the Cadets too are revolution-
aries! At the Cadets, at them!" The Cadet Rech, thoroughly imbued with
the desire of the loyal official to prove that the Constitutional-Democrats
can be no less moderate than the Octobrists, mincing Jy purses its lips,
pours forth a flood of "moral" disgust over the unscrupulous attempts
to accuse it of being revolutionary, and declares: We, of course, would
welcome the union of the opposition, but that union must be a movement
"/rom the left 1o the right" (editorial of February 2). "We have had ex-
perience of political mistakes and disillusionments. When an opposition
unites, it naturally unites on the minimum program of the most moder-
ate of the parties which form it."
This program is perfectly clear: the hegemony of bourgeois liberalism —
those are my terms, say the Cadets, just as Falloux in 1871 said to Thiers,
when the latter appealed to him for support: The monarchy — those are
my terms.
Stolichnaya Pochta* realized that it is shameful, disgraceful to say
such things outright, and it therefore "does not agree*' with Rech and
confines itself to vague hints at the "pre-October view" (the accursed
censorship prevents a clear statement of political program!) and, virtually
speaking, calls for a deal. Rech, it as much as says, wants to lead and
the revolutionaries want to lead (the new union), and what about me —
don't I deserve a tip for acting as an honest broker?
"Union" — we heartily sympathize with that slogan, especially when
a hint — although only a hint — is made at the "pre-October view." Only,
history does not repeat itself, most amiable politicians! And those les-
sons which were given us by the "history of the three years" no power
* Stolichnaya Pochta (Metropolitan Post) — a daily newspaper published by
the Tlrudovik group.-— Ed.
POLltlCAt NCiTES 479
on earth can obliterate from the minds of the various classes. Those Its-
sons are extremely rich, both for their positive content (the forms, char-
acter and conditions of the victory of the mass struggle of the workers
and peasants in 1905) and for their negative content (the collapse of two
Dumas, in other words, the collapse of constitutional illusions and Ca-
det hegemony).
Anybody who wants systematically to study, ponder over, under-
stand and carry to the masses these lessons — please let him do so! We are
all in favour of "union" — union for a relentless struggle against the rene-
gades from the revolution. You don't like that? Well, then our paths
diverge.
The old "pre-October" slogan ("Constituent Assembly") is a good one
and (let it not be said to the annoyance of M-d-m of the Nasha Mysl vol-
ume of articles) we shall not discard it. But it is inadequate. It is too
formal. It contains no recognition of acute practical issues. We shall
supplement it with the great lesson of the three great years. Our "mini-
mum program," the "program of our union," is simple and clear: 1) con-
fiscation of the landed estates; 2) a republic. The kind of Constituent
Assembly we need is one that can achieve this.
The history of the two Dumas, the Cadet Dumas, demonstrated with
amazing cogency, that the real struggle of social forces — the struggle
which was not always realized, which did not always break into the open,
but which always exercised a decisive influence upon every big politi-
cal issue and which always swept into oblivion the conjuring tricks of
the naive and roguishly-astute ignoramuses of "constitutionalism" —
that struggle was waged completely and entirely on behalf of the two
above-mentioned "objects." Not abstract theories, but the real experi-
ence of the struggle of our popular masses, under the real conditions of
Russia's landowners' autocracy, has demonstrated to us in practice the
inevitability of precisely these slogans. To those who are capable of grasp-
ing them we propose to "go their separate ways" but "strike jointly,"
to fight the enemy who is devastating Russia and killing off thousands
of Russia's finest people.
"You will remain alone with such a program of union." That is not
true.
Read the speeches of the non-partisan peasants in the first two
Dumas, and you will see that our program of unity only formulates
their wishes, their needs and the essential elementary inferences from
these needs. On those who do not understand these needs — from
the Cadets to Peshekhonov (he too has preached "unity" in Moscow,
as we are informed from there) — we shall wage war in th« name of
"unity."
It will be a stubborn war. We knew how to work during the long years
preceding the revolution. Not for nothing do they say we are as firm as
480 V. I. LENIN
a rock. The Social-Democrats have formed a proletarian party which will
not lose heart at the failure of the first armed onslaught, will not lose
its head, and will not be carried away by adventures. That party is march-
ing towards Socialism, without tying up its fate with the issue of
any period of bourgeois revolutions. Precisely for that reason, too, it is
free from the weak sides of bourgeois revolutions. And that proletarian
party is marching to victory.
*
Proletary No. 21,
February 26 [13], 1908
CERTAIN FEATURES
OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF MARXISM
Our doctrine — said Engels, referring to himself and his famous friend —
is not a dogma, but a guide to action. This classical statement stresses
with remarkable force and expressiveness that aspect of Marxism which
is constantly being lost sight of. And by losing sight of it, we
turn Marxism into something one-sided, disfigured and lifeless; we
deprive it of its living soul; we undermine its basic theoretical
foundations — dialectics, the doctrine that historical development is
all-embracing and full of contradictions; we sever its connection with
the definite practical tasks of the epoch, which may change with every
new turn of history.
And, indeed, in our time people are very frequently to be met with
among those interested in the fate of Marxism in Russia who lose sight
precisely of this aspect of Marxism. Yet, it must be clear to everybody
that in recent years Russia has undergone changes so abrupt as to alter
the situation with unusual rapidity and unusual force — the social and
political situation, which in a most direct and immediate manner deter-
mines the conditions of action, and, hence, the aims of action. I am not
referring, of course, to general and fundamental aims, which do not change
with turns of history so long as the fundamental relations between
classes do not change. It is perfectly obvious that this general trend of
economic (and not only economic) evolution in Russia, like the funda-
mental relations between the various classes of Russian society, has
not changed during, say, the last six years.
But the aims of direct and immediate action have changed very mark-
edly during this period, just as the concrete social and political situa-
tion has changed — and, consequently, in Marxism too, since it is a living
doctrine, various sides were bound to come to the fore.
In order to make this thought clear, let us take a glance at the change
that has taken place in the concrete social and political situation during
the past six years. We at once discern two three- year periods into which
this six-year period falls, the one ending roughly with the summer of
31—685 481
482 V. I. LENIN
1907, and the other with the summer of 1910. The first three- year period,
regarded from the purely theoretical standpoint, is distinguished by
rapid changes in the fundamental features of the state system in Russia.
The course of these changes was very uneven and the amplitude of oscil-
lations in both directions was very great. The social and economic basis
of these changes in the "superstructure" was the action of all classes
of Russian society in the most varying fields (activity inside and out-
side the Duma, the press, unions, meetings, and so forth), so open and
impressive and on such a mass scale as is not often to be observed in
history.
The second three-year period, on the contrary, was distinguished —
we repeat that we are here confining ourselves to the purely theoretical
"sociological" standpoint — by an evolution so slow that it almost amount,
ed to stagnation. There were no changes at all noticeable in the state
system. There were no, or almost no open and variegated actions by the
classes in the majority of the "arenas" in which these actions were enact-
ed in the preceding period.
The similarity between the two periods consisted in the fact that
the evolution of Russia in both periods remained the same as before,
capitalist evolution. The contradiction between this economic evolu-
tion and the existence of a number of feudal, mediaeval institutions
was not removed and also remained as before in consequence of the
fact that the assumption of a partially bourgeois character by cer-
tain institutions could only aggravate rather than ameliorate this contra-
diction.
The difference between the two periods consisted in the fact that dur-
ing the first of these periods the foreground of the historical arena was
occupied by the question of what exact form the result of the rapid and
uneven changes aforementioned would take. The content of these changes
was bound to be bourgeois owing to the capitalist character of the
evolution of Russia. But there is a bourgeoisie and a bourgeoisie. The
middle and big bourgeoisie, which professed a more or less moderate
liberalism, was, owing to its very class position, afraid of abrupt changes
and strove for the retention of large remnants of the old institutions both
in the agrarian system and in the political "superstructure." The rural
petty bourgeoisie, which is interwoven with the peasantry that lives
by "the labour of its own hands," was bound to strive for bourgeois re-
forms of a different kind, reforms that would leave far less room for me-
diaeval survivals. The wage- labourers, to the extent that they conscious-
ly realized what was going on around them, were bound to work out for
themselves a definite attitude towards this clash of two distinct tenden-
cies, both of which remained within the framework of the bourgeois
system, but which determined entirely different forms for it, entirely
different rates of its development, different degrees of its progressive
influences .
THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF MARXISM . 4b3
In this way, the period of the past three years, not fortuitously but
necessarily, brought to the forefront in Marxism those problems which
are usually referred to as problems of tactics. Nothing is more erroneous
than the opinion that the disputes and differences that arose over these
questions were "intellectual" disputes, that they were "a struggle for
influence over the immature proletariat," that they were an expression
of the "adaptation of the intelligentsia to the proletariat," as all the
VekJta-ites of various kinds think. On the contrary, it was precisely be-
cause this class had reached maturity that it could not remain indifferent
to the clash of the two different tendencies in the entire bourgeois de-
velopment of Russia, and the ideologists of this class could not avoid
providing theoretical formulations corresponding (directly or indirectly,
in direct or reverse reflection) to these different tendencies.
In the second three- year period the clash between the different tend-
encies of bourgeois development in Russia was not on the order of the day,
because both these tendencies we e being crushed by the "diehards,"
forced back, driven inwrards and, for the time being, smothered. The
mediaeval diehards not only occupied the foreground but also inspired
broad sections of bourgeois society with Vekha-ite sentiments, with a
spirit of despondency and recantation. It was not the collision between
two methods of reforming the old order that appeared on the surface,
but a loss of faith in reforms of all kinds, a spirit of "meekness" and
"repentance," an infatuation for anti-social doctrines, a fad of mysticism,
and so on.
And this astonishingly abrupt change was not fortuitous, nor was
it the result of "external" pressure alone. The preceding period had so
profoundly stirred up strata of the population who for generations and
centuries had stood aloof from, and were strangers, to political ques-
tions, that "a revaluation of all values," a new study of fundamental prob-
lems, a new interest in theory, in elementals, in a study beginning with
the rudiments, arose naturally and inevitably. The millions, suddenly
awakened from their long sleep, and suddenly confronted with ex-'
tremely important problems, could not remain on this level long, could
not carry on without a respite, without a return to elementary questions,
without a new training which would help them to "digest" lesfons of
unparalleled richness and make it possible for incomparably wider
masses again to march forward, but now far more firmly, more conscious-
ly, more assuredly and more persistently.
The dialectics of historical development was such that in the first
period it was the accomplishment of immediate reforms in every sphere
of the country 's life that was on the order of the day, while in the second
period on the order of the day was the study of experience, its assimila-
tion by wider strata, its penetration, if one may so express it, to the sub-
soil, to the backward ranks of the various classes.
It is precisely because Marxism is not a lifeless dogma, not a final,
31*
484 V. I. LENIN
finished and ready-made doctrine, but a living guide to action that it was
bound to reflect the astonishingly abrupt change in the conditions of
social life. A reflection of the change was a profound disintegration and
disunity, vacillations of all kinds, in a word, a very serious internal
crisis of Marxism. The necessity of putting up a determined resistance
to this disintegration, of waging a determined and persistent struggle
on behalf of the foundations of Marxism was again on the order of the
day. In, the preceding period, extremely wide sections of the classes that
cannot avoid Marxism in formulating their aims had assimilated Marxism
in an extremely one-sided and mutilated fashion, having learnt by rote
certain "slogans," certain answers to tactical questions, without having
understood the Marxist criteria of these answers. The "revaluation of
values" in all the various spheres of social life led to a "revision" of the
most abstract and general philosophical foundations of Marxism. The
influence of bourgeois philosophy in its multifarious idealist shades found
expression in the Machian epidemic that broke out among the Marxists.
The repetition of "slogans" learnt by rote but not understood and not
thought out led to the widespread prevalence of empty phrasemongering,
which in practice amounted to absolutely un-Marxist, petty-bourgeois
currents, such as frank or shamefaced "Otzovism," or the recognition
of Otzovism as a "legitimate shade" of Marxism.
On the other hand, the spirit of Vekha-ism, the spirit of recantation
which had taken possession of very wide sections of the bourgeoisie, pene-
trated to the current which endeavours to confine Marxist theory and
practice to "moderate and decent" channels. All that remained Marxist
here was the phraseology that served to clothe the arguments about "hier-
archy," "hegemony" and so forth, which were thoroughly infected by
the spirit of liberalism.
It cannot, of course, be the purpose of this article to examine these
arguments. A mere reference to them is sufficient to illustrate what has
been said above regarding the profundity of the crisis through which
Marxism is passing, regarding its connection with the whole social and
economic situation in the present period. The questions raised by this
crisis cannot be brushed aside. Nothing can be more pernicious or un-
principled than the attempts to dismiss them by phrasemongering. Noth-
ing is more important than to rally all Marxists who have realized the
profundity of the crisis and the necessity of combating it, for the purpose
of defending the theoretical foundations of Marxism and its basic pro-
positions, which are being distorted from diametrically opposite sides
by the spread of the bourgeois influence to the various "fellow- travellers"
of Marxism.
The preceding three years had awakened wide sections to a conscious par-
ticipation in social life, sections that in many cases are for the first time
beginning to acquaint themselves with Marxism in a real way. In this
connection the bourgeois press is creating far more fallacious ideas than
THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF MARXISM 486
ever before, and is disseminating them more widely. Under these cir-
cumstances the disintegration in the ranks of the Marxists is particularly
dangerous. Therefore, to understand the reasons for the inevitability of
this disintegration at the present time and to close their ranks for the
purpose of waging a consistent struggle against this disintegration is,
in the most direct and precise meaning of the term, the task of the era
for Marxists.
Originally published in Zvezda No. 2,
January 5, 1911 [December 23, 1910]
STOLYPIN AND THE REVOLUTION
The assassination of that hangman- in-chief, Stolypin, occurred at
a time when a number of symptoms have appeared showing that the
first period in the history of the Russian counter-revolution is drawing
to a close. That is why the event of September 1, quite insignificant in
itself, again poses the extremely important question of the content and
meaning of the counter-revolution in Russia. Amid the chorus of reac-
tionaries who are servilely singing the praises of Stolypin, or are rum-
maging in the history of the intrigues of the Black-Hundred gang which
is lording it over Russia, and amid the chorus of the liberals who are
shaking their heads over the "wild and insane" shot (it goes without
saying that included among the liberals are the former Social-Democrats
of the Dyelo Zhizni [The. Can^e of Life] who employed the hackneyed
expression in the quotation marks), one discerns notes of a really serious
and principled attitude. Attempts are being made to view "the Stoly-
pin period" of Russian history as a definite entity.
Stolypin headed the government of counter-re\olution for about
five years, from 1906 to 1911. This was indeed a singular period crowded
with instructive events. Outwardly, it may be described as the period
of preparation for and accomplishment of the coup d'etat of June 3, 1907.
The preparation for thi^ coup, which to date has already displayed all
its consequences in all the spheres of our social life, began in the summer
of 1906, when Stolypin addressed the First Duma in his capacity as Minis-
ter of the Interior. The question is: What social forces supported the
men who perpetrated the coup, or what forces prompted them? What
was the social and economic content of the period ushered in on June 3?
Stolypin 's personal "career" provides instructive material and interesting
illustrations bearing on this question.
A landlord and a marshal of the nobility, he was appointed governor
in 1902, under Plehve, gained "fame" in the eyes of the tsar and the
reactionary court clique by his brutal reprisals against the peasants and
the cruel punishment lie meted out to them (in the Saratov province),
organized Black-Hundred gangs and pogroms in 1905 (the pogrom in
Balashov), became Minister of the Interior in 1906 and President of the
(xjuncil of Ministers after the dispersal of the First State Duma. That,
in very brief outline, is Stolypin's political biography. And this biography
4*6
STOLYPIN AND THE REVOLUTION 487
of the head of the counter-revolutionary government is at the same time
the biography of the class which carried out the counter-revolution —
Stolypin being nothing more than an agent or clerk in its employ. This
class is the Russian landed nobility with Nicholas Romanov, the first
nobleman and biggest landlord, at their head. This class is made up of
the thirty thousand feudal landowners who control seventy million
dessiatins of land in the European part of Russia — that is to say, as much
land as is owned by ten million peasant households. The latifundia owned
by this class form the basis of the feudal exploitation which, in various
forms and under various names (labour rent, bondage, etc.) still reigns
in the traditionally Russian central provinces. The "land hunger" of
the Russian peasant (to use a favourite expression of the liberals and
Narodniks) is nothing but the reverse side of the over -abundance of land
in the hands of this class. The agrarian question, which was the central
issue in our Revolution of 1905, was the question of whether landlordism
would remain intact — in which case the poverty-stricken, indigent,
starving, brow-beaten and downtrodden peasantry would inevitably
remain the bulk of the population for many years to come; or whether
the bulk of the population would succeed in winning for themselves
more or less human conditions, conditions in any way resembling those
in the free countries of Europe — which, however, could not be accomplished
unless landlordism and the landlord monarchy inseparably bound up
with it were abolished in a revolutionary way.
Stolypin 's political biography is the faithful reflection and expression
of the conditions under which the tsarist monarchy finds itself. In view
of the situation that the revolution had created for the monarchy, Sto-
lypin could not act otherwise than in the way he did. The monarchy
could not act in any other way when it had become clear beyond any
doubt, when it had become clear in actual practice both prior to the
Duma, in 1905, and during the Duma, in 1906, that the vast, the over-
whelming majority of the population had already realized that its inter-
ests could not be reconciled with the preservation of the landlord class
and was striving to abolish that class. Nothing could be more superficial
and more false than the assertions of the Cadet writers that the attacks
upon the monarchy in our country were merely the expression of "intel-
lectual" revolutionism. On the contrary, the objective conditions were
such that it was the struggle of the peasants against landlordism that
inevitably posed the question of whether our landlord monarchy could
continue to live or whether it must die. Tsarism was compelled to wage
a life and death struggle, it was compelled to seek other means of defence
besides the utterly impotent bureaucracy and the army which had become
enfeebled as a result of military defeat and internal disintegration. All
that the tsarist monarchy could do under the circumstances was to organize
the Black-Hundred elements of the population and to perpetrate pogroms.
The high moral indignation with which our liberals speak of the pogroms
488 V, I. LENIN
cannot but produce upon every revolutionary an impression of something
utterly wretched and cowardly, particularly in view of the fact that
this high moral condemnation of pogroms turns out to be fully compat-
ible with the idea of conducting negotiations and concluding agreements
with the pogrom-makers. The monarchy had to defend itself against
the revolution; and the semi-Asiatic, feudal Russian monarchy of the
Romanovs could not defend itself by any other but the most infamous,
most Disgusting, v^e and cruel means. The only honourable way of com-
bating the pogroms, the only rational way from the standpoint of a So-
cialist and a democrat, is not to express high moral condemnation, but
to assist the revolution selflessly and in every way, organize the revolu-
tion for the overthrowal of this monarchy.
The pogrom-maker Stolypin groomed himself for a ministerial post
in the only way in which a tsarist governor could groom himself for such
a post — by torturing the peasants, by organizing pogroms and by showing
an ability to conceal these Asiatic "practices" behind gloss and phrases,
behind a pose and gestures made to look "European."
And the leaders of our liberal bourgeoisie, who are expressing their
high moral condemnation of pogroms, carried on negotiations with the
pogrom-makers, recognizing not only the latters' right to existence,
but their hegemony in the work of setting up a new Russia and of ruling
it! The assassination of Stolypin has been the occasion for a number of
interesting revelations and confessions concerning this question. Thus,
for instance, Witte and Guchkov have published letters concerning the
former's negotiations with "public figures" (read: with the leaders of
the moderate liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie) about forming a Cabinet
after October 17, 1905. Among those who took part in the negotiations
with Witte — these negotiations must have taken a long time, because
Guchkov writes of "the wearisome days of protracted negotiations" —
were Shipov, Trubetskoy, Urusov and M. Stakhovich, i.e., the future
leaders of the Cadets, and of the Party of "Peaceable Renovation," and
of the Octobrist Party, The negotiations, it turns out, were broken off
on account of Durnovo, whom the "liberals" refused to accept as Minis-
ter of the Interior, while Witte demanded this in the form of an ulti-
matum. Urusov, however, a leading light of the Cadet Party in the First
Duma, "ardently supported Durnovo 's candidacy." When Prince Obo-
lensky suggested Stolypin for the post "some of those present supported
the idea, others said that they did not know him." "I remember defi-
nitely," writes Guchkov, "that no one raised the objection of which Count
Witte writes in his letter."
Now the Cadet press, in its desire to emphasize its "democratism"
(no joke!), particularly, perhaps, -in connection with the elections in the
first curia in St. Petersburg, where a Cadet opposed an Octobrist, is
trying to castigate Guchkov for those negotiations. "How often it hap-
pened," writes the Rech in its issue of September 28, "that in order to
STOLYPIN AND THE REVOLUTION 489
please the powers that be, the Octobrist gentlemen, with Guchkov at
their head, joined hands with Mr. Durnovo's colleagues! How often
it happened that, with their eyes glued to the powers that be, they turned
their backs on public opinion!" The same reproach levelled by the Cadets
at the Octobrists is repeated in a number of variations in the leading
article of the Russkiye Vyedomosti of the same date.
But, with your permission, gentlemen of the Cadet Party — by what
right do you reproach the Octobrists, if your representatives also took
part in the very same negotiations and even defended Durnovo? Were
not all the Cadets at that time, in November 1905, like Urusov, in the
position of people who have "their eyes glued to the powers that be"
and their backs "turned on public opinion"? Yours is a "family quarrel,"
not a principled struggle but rivalry between parties equally unprincipled
— that is what we have to say apropos of the present reproaches levelled
by the Cadets against the Octobrists in connection with the "negotia-
tions" at the end of 1905. An altercation of this sort only serves to obscure
the really important and historically undeniable fact that all shades of
the liberal bourgeoisie, from the Octobrists to the Cadets, inclusive,
had "their eyes glued to the powers that be" and "turned their backs" on
the democracy ever since our revolution assumed a really popular char-
acter, i.e., ever since it became a democratic revolution because of the
democratic forces taking an active part in it. The Stolypin period of the
Russian counter-revolution is characterized by this very fact, namely,
that the liberal bourgeoisie has been turning its back on democracy, and
that therefore Stolypin could turn for assistance, sympathy and advice
now to one, now to another representative of this bourgeoisie. If it were
not for this state of affairs, Stolypin would not have been able to exercise
the hegemony of the Council of the United Nobility over the counter-
revolutionary-minded bourgeoisie with the assistance, sympathy, and
active or passive support of this bourgeoisie.
This aspect of the matter deserves special attention, because it is
precisely this aspect that is lost sight of — or intentionally ignored — by
our liberal press, as well as by such organs of a liberal labour policy as
the Dyelo Zhizni. Stolypin was not merely a Minister who represented
the dictatorship of the feudal landlords. Whoever confines himself to
this characterization shows that he has understood nothing as regards
the singularity and meaning of the "Stolypin period." Stolypin was
Minister during a period when counter-revolutionary sentiments prevailed
among the entire liberal bourgeoisie, including the Cadets, when the
feudal landlords could, and did, rely on these sentiments, when they
could, and did, approach the leaders of this bourgeoisie with "offers'*
(of hand and heart), when they could regard even the most "Left" of
these leaders as "His Majesty's Opposition," when they could, and did,
refer to the fact that the ideological leaders of the liberals had begun
to incline to their side, to the side of reaction, to the side of those who
490 V. I. LENIN
fought the democracy and slung mud at it. Stolypin was Minister during
the period when the feudal landlords bent all their efforts to inaugurate
and put into effect as speedily as possible a bourgeois policy in regard
to peasant agrarian relationships, when they had thrown overboard all
the romantic illusions and hopes based on the muzhik's "patriarchal"
nature, and began to look for allies among the new, bourgeois elements
of Russia in general and of rural Russia in particular. Stolypin tried
to pour new wine into the old bottles, to reshape the old autocracy into
a bourgeois monarchy; and the failure of Stolypin 's policy is the failure
of tsarism on this last road — the last conceivable for tsarism. Alexander III 's
landlord monarchy tried to rely for support on the "patriarchal" coun-
tryside and on the "patriarchal elements" in Russian life in general.
That policy was utterly smashed by the revolution. Nicholas II's land-
lord monarchy, after the revolution, tried to rely for support on the
counter-revolutionary sentiments of the bourgeoisie and on a bourgeois
agrarian policy put into effect by the very same landlords. The failure
of these attempts, which even the Cadets, even the Octobrists can no
longer doubt, is the failure of the last policy possible for tsarism.
Under Stolypin the dictatorship of the feudal landlord was not directed
against the whole nation, including the entire "third estate," the entire
bourgeoisie. No, that dictatorship was exercised under conditions most
favourable for it when the Octobrist bourgeoisie served it heart and
soul; when the landlords and the bourgeoisie had a representative body
in which their bloc was guaranteed a majority and a formal opportunity
was provided for conducting negotiations and arranging deals with the
crown; when Mr. Struve and the other Vekhi-ites reviled the revolution
in a hysterical frenzy and propounded an ideology which gladdened the
heart of Anthony, Bishop of Volhynia; when Mr. Milyukov proclaimed
that the Cadet opposition was a "His Majesty's Opposition" (his majesty
being an out-of-date feudal lord). Nevertheless, despite all these favour-
able conditions for the Romanovs, despite all these most favourable
conditions conceivable, considering the alignment of social forces in
capitalist Russia of the twentieth century — despite all this, Stolypin 's
policy ended in failure. Stolypin has been assassinated at a moment
when a new grave-digger of the tsar's autocracy — or, rather, the grave-
digger who is gathering new strength — is knocking at the door.
Stolypin's attitude to the leaders of the bourgeoisie, and vice versa,
is characterized most fully by the relations that existed during the period
of the First Duma. "The period from May to July 1906 was decisive for
Stolypin's career," writes the Rech. What was the centre of gravity dur-
ing that period?
"Of course," states the official organ of the Cadet Party, "the centre
of gravity during that period was not the speeches in the Duma."
STOLYPIN AND THE REVOLUTION 491
That's a valuable admission, indeed! What a pile of lances were broken
at that time in tilts with the Cadets over the question as to whether the
"speeches in the Duma" could be regarded as the "centre of gravity"
during that period! What a torrent of angry abuse and supercilious doc-
trinaire lecturing was let loose in the Cadet press against the Social-
Democrats who, in the spring and summer of 1906, maintained that
the centre of gravity during that period was not the speeches in the Duma!
How much the Rech and the Duma reproached the whole of Russian
"society" at that time for cherishing dreams about a "Convention" and
failing to wax sufficiently enthusiastic over the Cadet triumphs in the
"parliamentary" arena of the First Duma! Five years have passed since
then; there happens to be a need for a general appraisal of the period
of the First Duma, and the Cadets proclaim quite nonchalantly, as if
it were a matter of changing a pair of gloves, that, "Of course, the centre
of gravity during that period was not the speeches in the Duma."
Of course, not, gentlemen! But what, then, was the centre of gravity?
"Behind the scenes," we read in the Reck, "a sharp struggle was going
on between the representatives of two currents. One recommended a pol-
icy of compromise with the popular representatives, not shrinking even
before the formation of a 'Cadet Cabinet.' The other demanded that the
government act vigorously, dissolve the State Duma and change the
election law. That was the program advocated by the Council of the
United Nobility which enjoyed the support of powerful influences. . . .
At first Stolypin hesitated. There are indications that on two occasions,
with Kryzhanovsky acting as intermediary, he made overtures to Murom*
tsev, proposing to discuss the possibility of forming a Cadet Cabinet
with Stolypin as Minister of the Interior. But at the same time Stolypin
undoubtedly maintained contact with the Council of the United No-
bility."
That is how history is written by the educated, scholarly and well-
read leaders of the liberals ! So it appears that the "centre of gravity"
was wo£ speeches, but the struggle between two currents within the Black-
Hundred tsarist court clique! Immediate "onslaught," without any
delays, was the policy of the Council of the United Nobility, ?.e-., not
of individual persons, not of Nicholas Romanov, not of "one current"
in "high quarters " but of a definite class. The Cadets see, clearly and
soberly, their rivals on the Right. But anything to the Left of the Cadets
has disappeared from their field of vision. History was being made by
the "high quarters," the Council of the United Nobility and the Cadets;
the common people, of course, took no part in the making of history!
A definite class (the nobility) was opposed by the "People's Freedom"
Party, which stands above classes, while the "high quarters," (?.e., the
tsar little-father) hesitated.
It is hardly possible to imagine a higher degree of selfish class blind-
ness, a worse form of distorting history and forgetting the elementary
492 V. I. LENIN
truths of historical science, a more wretched muddle and a worse confu-
sion of class, party and individuals!
Nobody is as blind as he who does not mint to see the democracy and
its forces.
Of course, the centre of gravity during the period of the First Duma
was not the speeches in the Duma. It lay in the struggle between classes
outside the Duma, in the struggle waged by the feudal landlords and
their, monarchy against the masses of the people, against the worker^
and peasants. It was precisely during that period that the revolutionary
movement of the masses was again on the upgrade; the spring and summer
of 1906 were marked by a grim upsurge of the wave of strikes in general
and of political strikes, of peasant riots and of mutinies in the armed
forces. That, Messrs. Cadet historians was why the "high quarters" hesi-
tated: the struggle between the currents within the tsar's gang was over
the question whether, considering the force of the revolution at the time,
they should attempt the coup d'etat at once9 or whether they should bide
their time and lead the bourgeoisie by the nose a little longer.
The First Duma fully convinced the landlords (Romanov, Stolypin
and Co.) that there can be no peace between them and the peasant and
working-class masses. This conviction of theirs fully accorded with objec-
tive reality. All that remained for them to decide was a question of minor
importance: when and how to change the election Jaw— at once or grad-
ually? The bourgeoisie vacillated; but its entire behaviour, even that
of the Cadet bourgeoisie, showed that it feared the revolution a hundred
times more than it feared reaction. That was why the landlords deigned
to invite the leaders of the bourgeoisie (Muromtsev, Heyden, Guchkov
and Co.) to conferences at which they discussed the question of whether
they might not jointly form a Cabinet. And the entire bourgeoisie, includ-
ing the Cadets, conferred with the tsar, with the pogrom- makers, with
the leaders of the Black-Hundreds about the means of combating
the revolution; but since the end of 1905 the bourgeoisie has never sent
representatives of a single one of its parties to confer with the lead-
ers of the revolution about how to overthrow the autocracy and the
monarchy.
That is the principal lesson to be drawn from the "Stolypin period"
of Russian history* Tsarism conferred with the bourgeoisie when the
revolution still seemed to be a force; but it applied its jackboot to kick
out gradually all the leaders of the bourgeoisie — first Muromtsev and
Milyukov, then Heyden and Lvov, and, finally, Guchkov — as soon as
the revolutionary pressure from below relaxed. The difference between
the Milyukovs, the Lvovs and the Guchkovs is absolutely immaterial —
nothing but a matter of the sequence in which these leaders of the bour-
geoisie turned their cheeks to receive the . . . "kisses" of Romanov- Pu-
rishkevich-Stolypin and the sequence in which they received these . . .
"kisses."
STOLYPIN AND THE REVOLUTION 493
Stolypin disappeared from the stage at the very moment when the
Black- Hundred monarchy had taken all it could use of the counter-
revolutionary sentiments of the whole Russian bourgeoisie. Now this
bourgeoisie — repudiated, humiliated, and disgraced by its own renun-
ciation of democracy, of the struggle of the masses, of the revolution —
stands perplexed and bewildered, seeing the symptoms of a gathering
new revolution. Stolypin helped the Russian people to learn a useful
lesson: Either march to freedom, by overthrowing the tsar's monarchy,
under the leadership of the proletariat; or sink deeper into slavery, submit
to the Purishkeviches, Markovs and Tolmachovs, under the ideological
and political leadership of the Milyukovs and Guchkovs.
Sotsial- Democrat No. 24,
October 31 [18], 1911
ON LIQUIDATORISM AND THE GROUP
OF LIQUIDATORS *
Whereas
1) For nearly four years already the R.S.D.L.P. has been waging
a determined fight against the Liquidatorist trend, which was charac-
terized at the conference of the Party in December, 1908 as
"attempts on the part of a section of the Party intellectuals to liqui-
date the existing organization of the R.S.D.L.P. and to replace it at all
costs, even at the price of downright renunciation of the program, tactics
and traditions of the Party, by an amorphous association functioning
legally";
2) The Plenum of the Central Committee held in January 1910, con-
tinuing the fight against this trend, unanimously declared it to be a mani-
festation of bourgeois influence upon the proletariat and demanded as
a condition for real Party unity and for the fusion of the former Bolshe-
vik and Menshevik factions, a complete rupture with Liquidatorism and
the utter rout of this bourgeois deviation from Socialism;
3) In spite of all the decisions of the Party, and in spite of the obli-
gation assumed by the representatives of all the factions at the Plenum
of January 1910, a section of Social -Democrats, grouped around the
journals Naaha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni, has openly come out in defence
of a trend which the entire Party has recognized to be a product of bour-
geois influence upon the proletariat;
4) The former members of the Central Committee, M — 1, Yuri and
Roman, not only refused to join the Central Committee in the spring of
1910, but refused even to attend a single meeting for the purpose of co-
opting new members, and openly declared that they considered the very
existence of the Central Committee of the Party "harmful";
5) It was precisely after the Plenum of 1910 that the above-mentioned
principal publications of the Liquidators, the Naaha Zarya and Dyelo
Zhizni, definitely turned to Liquidatorism along the whole line, not only
* This resolution was adopted at the Sixth (Prague) Conference of
the R.S.D.L.P. at which the Mensheviks were expelled from the Party and the
Bolsheviks constituted thernselves an independent, Bolshevik Party. — Ed.
494
ON LIQUIDATORISM AND THE GROUP OF LIQUIDATORS 495
"derogating" [contrary to the decisions of the Plenum] from the "importance
of the illegal Party," but renouncing it outright, declaring that the Party-
was "a corpse," declaring that the Party was already liquidated, declar-
ing that the idea of reviving the illegal Party was "a reactionary Utopia,"
using the columns of legally published journals to heap slander and abuse
on the illegal Party, calling upon the workers to regard the nuclei of the
Party and its hierarchy as "dead," etc.;
6) At a time when throughout Russia the members of the Party, irre-
spective of factions, united to promote the immediate task of convening
a Party conference, the Liquidators, banded together in entirely independ-
ent coteries, split away from the local organizations, even where the
pro-Party Mensheviks predominated (Ekaterinoslav, Kiev) and definitely
refused to maintain any Party relations with the local organizations of
the R.S.D.L.P., therefore be it
Resolved that
The conference declares that the group of the Nasha Zarya and Dyelo
iy by dint of its conduct, has definitely placed itself outside the
Party.
The conference calls upon all Party members, irrespective of tendencies
and views, to combat the Liquidatorist trend, explain its utter harmfulness
for the cause of the emancipation of the working class, and bend all their
efforts to revive and strengthen the illegal R.S.D.L.P.
First published in 1912
in the pamphlet
Thv All-Ruattian 19] 2 Conference
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS
AN OPEN PARTY AND THE MARXISTS
I. THE DECISION OF 1908
To many workers the struggle that is now going on between the Pravda
and the Luck appears unnecessary and not very intelligible. It is natural
that the controversial articles in separate issues of the newspaper on sepa-
rate, sometimes very special questions do not give a complete idea of the
objects and content of the struggle. Hence the legitimate dissatisfaction
of the workers.
Yet the question of Liquidatorism, over which the struggle is now
being waged, is at the present time one of the most important and most
urgent questions of the labour movement. It is impossible to be a class -
conscious worker unless one studies the question in detail, unless one forms
a definite opinion on it. A worker who wishes to reach independent con-
clusions on the destinies of his party will not waive polemics, even if
they are not quite intelligible at first sight, but will earnestly seek and
find the truth.
How is one to find the truth? How is one to make head or tail of the
mutually contradictory opinions and assertions?
Every reasonable person understands that if a bitter struggle takes
place on any subject, he must, in order to ascertain the truth, not con-
fine himself to the statements made by the disputants, but must examine
the facts and documents for himself, see whether there is any evidence
of witnesses and whether that evidence is reliable.
This, of course, is not always easy to do. It is much "easier" to take
for granted what you happen to hear, what is more "openly" proclaimed,
and so on. But people who are satisfied with this are dubbed "shallow,"
shallow-brained people, and no one takes them seriously. It is impos-
sible to get at the truth of any important question unless one undertakes
a certain amount of independent work, and whoever is afraid of work de-
prives himself of the possibility of finding the truth.
Therefore, we appeal only to those workers who are not afraid of this
work, who have decided to get at the bottom of the matter themselves and
try to discover facts, documents, evidence of witnesses.
496
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS 49T
The first question that arises is — what is Liquidatorism? Where did
this word come from, what does it mean?
The Luch says that the liquidation of the Party, i.e., the dissolution,
the break-up of the Party, the renunciation of the Party, is merely a wicked
invention; the "factionaiist" Bolsheviks invented this charge against
the Mensheviks!
The Pravda states that the whole Party has been condemning and
fighting Liquidatorism for over four years.
Who is right? How is one to discover the truth?
Obviously, there is only one way of doing it: to seek for facts and
documents in the history of the Party of the last four years, from 1908 to
1912, when the Liquidators finally seceded from the Party.
It is precisely these four years, when the present Liquidators were
-still in the Party, that represent the most important period for the purpose
-of tracing the origin of the concept, Liquidatorism.
Hence, the first and basic conclusion: whoever talks of Liquidatorism,
while avoiding the facts and documents of the Party during the period
1908-11, is hiding the truth from the workers.
What are these facts and documents of the Party?
First of all the Party decision adopted in December 1908.* If the
•workers do not wish to be treated like children who are stuffed with fairy
tales and fables, they must ask their advisers, leaders or representatives,
whether a Party decision was adopted on the question of Liquidatorism
in December 1908 and what that decision was.
That decision contains a condemnation of Liquidatorism and the expla-
nation of what it is.
Liquidatorism is the "attempts on the part of a section of the
Party intellectuals to liquidate" (i.e., to dissolve, destroy, abolish,
close down) "the existing organization of the Party and to replace
it at all costs, even at the price of downright renunciation of the
program, tactics and traditions" (i.e., the past experience) "of
the Party by an amorphous association functioning legally'' (i.e.,
in conformity with the laws, existing "openly").
Such was the decision of the Party on Liquidatorism, passed more
than four years ago.
It is obvious from this decision what the essence of Liquidatorism is
and why it is condemned. Its essence is the renunciation of the "under-
ground," the abolition of the latter and its replacement at all costs by an
amorphous association functioning legally. Therefore, it is not legal
work, not the insistence on its necessity that the Party condemns. The
Party condemns — and unreservedly condemns — the replacement of the
* This refers to the decision of the Fifth Conference of the Russian Social -
Democratic Labour Party. — Ed.
32—686
4$8 V. I. LENIN
old Party by something amorphous, "open," something which cannot
be called a party.
The Party cannot exist unless it defends its existence, unless it unre-
servedly fights those who want to abolish and destroy it, who do not
recognize it, who renounce it. This is obvious.
He who renounces the existing Party in the name of some new one must
be told: try, build up a new party, but you cannot remain a member of the
old, the present, the existing Party. Such is the meaning of the Party deci-
sion that was passed in December 1908, and it is obvious that no other
decision could have been adopted on the question of the existence of the
Party.
Of course, Liquidatorism is ideologically connected with renegacy,
with the renunciation of the program and tactics, with opportunism. TLis
is exactly what is indicated in the concluding part of the above-quoted
decision. But Liquidatorism is not only opportunism. The opportunists
are leading the Party on to a wrong, bourgeois path, the path of a liber-
al labour policy, but they do not renounce the Party itself, they do not
dissolve it. Liquidatorism is that brand of opportunism that goes to the
length of renouncing the Party. It is self-evident that the Party cannot
exist if it includes those who do not recognize its existence. It is equally
understandable that the renunciation of the "underground" under the
existing conditions is tantamount to the renunciation of the old Party.
The question is, what is the attitude of the Liquidators towards the
decision adopted by the Party in 1908?
This is the crux of the matter, this puts the sincerity and political
honesty of the Liquidators to the test.
Not one of them, unless he has taken leave of his senses, will deny the
fact that such a decision was adopted by the Party and has not been re-
pealed.
And so the Liquidators resort to evasions; they either avoid the question
and withhold from the workers the Party's decision of 1908, or exclaim
(often accompanied with abuse) that this decision was carried by the
Bolsheviks.
But abuse only betrays the weakness of the Liquidators. Party deci-
sions have been carried by the Mensheviks, for example, the decision con-
cerning municipalization, which was passed in Stockholm in 1906.*
This is common knowledge. Many Bolsheviks do not agree with that
decision. But not one of them denies that it is a, Party decision. 1 1 exactly
the same way the decision of 1908 concerning Liquidatorism is a Party
decision. All subterfuges in regard to this question only signify a
desire to mislead the workers.
Whoever wants to recognize the Party, not in words only, will not
permit any subterfuges in this connection, and will insist on getting at
* The reference here is to the Fourth (Unity) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. — Ed~
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS 499'
the truth concerning the decision of the Party on the question of Liqui-
datorism. This decision has been endorsed since 1909 by all the pro-Party
Ifensheviks, headed by Plekhanov who, in his Dnevnik (Diary) and in
a whole series of other Marxian publications, explained on many occa-
sions and quite definitely that he who wants to liquidate the Party can-
not be in the Party.
Plekhanov has been and will remain a Menshevik. Therefore the usual
allusions of the Liquidators to the "Bolshevik" nature of the decisions
of the Party in 1908 are doubly wrong.
The more abuse the Liquidators hurl at Plekhanov in the Luch and
NashaZarya, the clearer is the proof that the Liquidators are in the wrong
and that they are trying to obscure the truth by noise, shouting and
brawling. Sometimes a novice is stunned by such methods, but the work-
ers will find their bearings for all that, and will soon brush aside the
abuse.
Is the unity of the workers necessary? It is.
Is the unity of the workers possible without the unity of the workers'
organization? Obviously not.
What prevents the unity of the workers' party? Disputes over Liqui-
datorism.
Therefore, the workers must understand what these disputes are about
in order that they themselves may decide the destiny of their Party and
save it.
The first step in this direction is to read the first decision of the Party
on Liquidatorism. The workers must know this decision thoroughly and
study it carefully, brushing aside all attempts to evade the question
or to sidetrack it. Having studied this decision, every worker will
begin to understand the essence of the question of Liquidatorism,
why this question is so important and so "acute," why this question
has been facing the Party during the four years and more of the period
of reaction.
In the next article we shall consider another important decision of the
Party on Liquidatorism which was adopted about three and a half years
ago, and then pass on to facts and documents which define how the ques-
tion stands at present.
II. THE DECISION OF 1910
In our first article (Pravda, No. 289) we quoted the first and basic
document with which those workers who wish to discover the truth in
the present disputes must make themselves familiar, namely, the Party
decision of December 1908 on the question of Liquidatorism.
Now we shall quote and examine another, no less important decision
of the Party on the same question that was passed three and a half years
32*
600 V. I. LENIN
ago, in January 1910,* This decision is especially important because
it was carried unanimously: all the Bolsheviks, without exception, all
the so-called Fpen/od-ites, and finally (this is most important of all)
all the Mensheviks and the present Liquidators without exception, and
also all the "national" (i.e., Jewish, Polish and Lettish) Marxists en-
dorsed this decision.
We quote here in full the most important passage in this decision:
"The historical situation of the Social-Democratic movement
in the period of the bourgeois counter-revolution inevitably gives
rise, as a manifestation of the bourgeois influence over the prole-
tariat, on the one hand, to the renunciation of the illegal Social-Demo-
cratic Party, the debasement of its role and importance, the attempts
to curtail the program and tactical tasks and slogans of consistent
Social-Democracy, etc.; on the other hand, it gives rise to the
renunciation of the Duma work ofj Social-Democracy and of
the utilization of the legal possibilities, the failure to under-
stand the importance of either, the inability to adapt consistent
Social-Democratic tactics to the peculiar historical conditions of
the present moment, etc.
"An integral part of the Social-Democratic tactics under such
conditions is the overcoming of both deviations by broadening and
deepening the Social-Democratic work in all spheres of the class
struggle of the proletariat and by explaining the danger of such
deviations."
This decision clearly shows that three and a half years ago all the
Marxists, as represented by all the tendencies without exception, had
unanimously to recognize two deviations from the Marxian tactics. Both
deviations were recognized as dangerous. Both deviations were explained
as being due, not to accident, not to the evil intention of individual
persons but to the "historical situation" of the labour movement in the
given period.
Moreover, this unanimous decision of the Party points to the class
origin and significance of these deviations. For Marxists do not confine
themselves merely to bare references to ruin and disintegration. That
disintegration, lack of faith, despondency, perplexity reign in the minds
of many adherents of democracy and Socialism is obvious to all. It is not
enough to admit this. It is necessary to understand the class origin of the
discord and disruption, to understand what class interests of the non-
proletarian environment foster this "confusion" among the friends of the
proletariat.
And the decision of the Party adopted three and a half years ago gave
* This refers to the "unity" plenum of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.?.
held in Paris, January 2-23, 1910.— Ed.
CONTROVERSIAL QL ESTIONS 601
an answer to this important question: the deviations from Marxism are
generated by the "bourgeois counter-revolution," they are generated by
the "bourgeois influence over the proletariat."
What are these deviations that threaten to deliver the proletariat to
the influence of the bourgeoisie? One of these deviations, which is connect-
ed with Vperyod-ism and which renounced the Duma work of the Social-
Democrats as well as the utilization of the legal possibilities, has disap-
peared almost completely. None of the Social-Democrats in Russia now preach
these erroneous non-Marxian views. The Vperyod-itcs (including Alexinsky
and others) have begun to work in Pravda alongside the pro- Party Men-
sheviks.
The other devia ion indicated in the decision of the Party is precisely
Liquidator ism. This is obvious from the reference to the "renunciation**
of the "underground" and to the "debasement" of its role and importance.
Finally, we have a very precise document, published three years ago
and refuted by no one, a document emanating from all the "national"
Marxists and from Trotsky (better witnesses than whom the Liquidators
could not produce); this document states directly that "in essence it
would be desirable to call the tendency indicated in the resolution Liqui-
dator'ism , which it is necessary to combat. ..."
Thus, the fundamental, the most important fact that everyone who
wants to understand what the present controversy is about must know,
is that: three and a half years ago the Party unanimously recognized Liqui-
datorism to be a "dangerous" deviation from Marxism, a deviation
which it is necessary to combat, which expresses the "bourgeois influence
over the proletariat."
The interests of the bourgeoisie, which is biassed against democracy
and which is, generally speaking, counter-revolutionary, demand the
liquidation, dissolution of the old party of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie
is doing everything to disseminate and support all ideas directed towards
the liquidation of the party of the working class. The bourgeoisie is striv-
ing to sow the seeds of renunciation of the old tasks, in order to "curtail"
them, to cut and lop them off, to emasculate them, to substitute concil-
iation or an agreement with the Purishkeviches and Co. for the determined
destruction of the foundations of their power.
Liquidatorism is, in fact, the introduction of these bourgeois ideas
of renunciation and renegacy among the proletariat.
Such is the class significance cf Liquidatorism as indicated in the
unanimous decision of the Party three and a half years ago. It is in this
that the entire Party sees the greatest harmfulness and danger of Liqui-
datorism, its pernicious effect on the labour movement, on the consoli-
dation of an independent (in deeds and not in words) party of the working
class.
Liquidatorism is not only the "liquidation" (i.e., the dissolution, the
destruction) of the old party of the working class, it alfo means the cle-
602 V. I. LENIN
struction of the class independence of the proletariat, the corruption of its
class consciousness by bourgeois ideas.
We shall give an illustration of this appraisal of Liquidatorism in the
.next article, which will set forth in full the most important arguments
of the Liquidator ist Luch. And now let us sum up briefly what we have
stated above. The attempts of the Luch-ites in general, and of Messrs.
Dan and Potresov in particular, to argue that "Liquidatorism" is an
inventipn are subterfuges remarkable for their falsity, subterfuges based
on the assumption that the readers of the Luck are completely uninformed
Actually, apart from the Party decision of 1908, there is a unanimous
Party decision of 1910, which gives a complete appraisal of Liquidatorism
as a bourgeois deviation from the proletarian path, a deviation that is
harmful and dangerous to the working class. Only the enemies of the
working class can hide or evade this Party appraisal.
III. THE ATTITUDE OF THE LIQUIDATORS TO THE DECISIONS
OF 1908 AND 1910
In the preceding article (Pravda, No. 95 [299]), we quoted the exact
words of the unanimous Party decision on Liquidatorism, which define
the latter as a manifestation of bourgeois influence over the proletariat.
As we have pointed out, this decision was adopted in January 1910.
Let us now examine the behaviour of those Liquidators who brazenly
assure us that there is not and never was such a thing as Liquidatorism.
In February 1910, in No. 2 of the Nzsha Zarya, which had just made
its appearance, Mr. Potresov wrote bluntly that "a party representing a
complete and organized hierarchy" O'.e., ladder or system) "of institu-
tions does not exist" and that it is impossible to liquidate "what in reality
no longer exists as an organized body." (See Nasha Zarya, 1910, No. 2,
p. 61.)
This was stated a month or even less after the unanimous decision of
the Party!
And in March 1910, another Liquidatorist journal namely Vozrozh-
deniye9 having the same set of contributors, Potresov, Dan, Martynov,
Yezhov, Martov, Levitsky and Co., stressed and popularly explained
Mr. Potresov's words:
"There is nothing to wind up and — we on our part" (i.e., the
editors of Vozrozhdeniye) "would add — the dream of re-establish-
ing this hierarchy in its old, underground form is simply a harmful
reactionary Utopia which indicates the loss of political intuition
by the representatives of a party which at one time was the most
realistic of all." (Vozrozhdeniye , 1910, No. 5, p. 51.)
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS , &(#
No party exists, and the idea of restoring it is a harmful Utopia — these
are clear and definite words. Here we have a plain and direct renuncia-
tion of the Party. The renunciation (and the invitation to the workers
to do likewise) came from people who abandoned the underground and
"dreamed" of an open party.
This defection from the underground was, moreover, quite definitely
and openly supported by P. B. Axelrod in 1912, both in the Nevsky Oolos
(1912, No. 6) and in Nasha Zarya (1912, No. 6).
"With the state of affairs in the Party as they are, to speak about
4non-factionalism, '" P. B. Axelrod wrote, "means behaving like
an ostrich ... it means deceiving oneself and others. . . . Faction-
al organization and consolidation constitute the prime duty and
the most urgent task of the partisans of Party reform or to be more
exact, of revolution."
Thus P. B. Axelrod is openly in favour of a Party revolution, i.e.,
the destruction of the old Party and the formation of a new one.
In 1913, the Luch9No. 101, in an unsigned editorial stated plainly that
<s among the workers in some places there is even a revival and strengthen-
ing of sympathy for illegal work" and that this is "a regrettable fact."
L. Sedov,* the author of that article, admitted that the article "caused
dissatisfaction" even among the partisans of the tactics of the Latch.
(Nasha Zarya, 1913, No. 3, p. 49.) L. Sedov 's explanations in this connec-
tion were such as to cause renewed dissatisfaction; this time it was one
of the partisans of the Luch, namely, An** who in the Luch, No. 181, wrote
opposing Sedov. An protests against Sedov 's assumption that "illegality
is an obstacle to the political organization of our movement, to the build-
ing up of a workers' Social-Democratic Party." An ridicules L. Sedov,
who leaves one "in the dark" as to whether illegality is desirable or not.
The editors of the Luch published a long postscript to An's article in
which they found An "to be in the wrong in his criticism of L. Sedov,"
and declared themselves in favour of Sedov.
We will examine the arguments of the editors of the Lwh as well
as the Liquidatorist mistakes of An himself in their proper place. This is
not the point we are discussing here. Just now it is up to us carefully to
appraise the fundamental and principal conclusion to be drawn from the
documents we have quoted above.
The entire Party, both in 1908 and in 1910, condemned and rejected
Liquidatorism, and clearly and in detail explained the class origin and
the danger of this tendency. All the Liquidatorist newspapers and jour*
* L. Sedov (L. £.)— B, A. Ginsburg.— Ed.
** An — Noah Jordania, one of the leaders of the Georgian Mensheviks and
L iquid ators . — Ed .
504 V. I. LENIN
nab— Vozrozhdeniye (1909-10), Nasha Zarya (1910-13), the Nevsky Golo&
(1912), and the Luch (1912-13) — all, after the most definite and even unan-
imous decisions have been adopted by the Party, reiterate thoughts
and arguments that contain obvious Liquidator ism.
Even the devotees of the "Luch" are forced to declare that they disagree
with these arguments, with this preaching. This is a fact. Therefore, to
shout about the "baiting" of Liquidators, as Trotsky, Semkovsky and many
other patronizers of Liquidatorism do, is downright dishonesty, for it is
a crying distortion of the truth.
The truth proved by the documents I have quoted, which cover a
period of more than//t>e years (1908-13), is that the Liquidators, mocking
all the Party decisions, continue to abuse and bait the Party, i.e., "ille-
gal work."
Every worker who wants seriously to examine the controversial and
vexed questions himself, who wants to decide these questions for himself,
must first of all master this truth and take independent measures to investi-
gate and verify the above-quoted decisions of the Party and the arguments
of the Liquidators. Only those who carefully study, ponder over and in*
dependently solve the problems and destiny of their Party deserve to be
called Party members and builders of the workers ' party. It is impossi-
ble to treat with indifference the question of whether it is the Party that
is "guilty" of "baiting" (i.e., of too trenchant and mistaken attacks on)
the Liquidators or whether it is the Liquidators who are guilty of direct-
ly violating Party decisions, of persistently advocating the liquidation*
i.e.* the destruction, of the Party.
It is obvious that the Party cannot exist unless it fights the destroyers
of the Party with all its might.
Having cited the documents on this fundamental question, we shall*
in the next article, pass on to the appraisal of the ideological content of
the preaching of an "open Party."
IV. THE CLASS MEANING OF LIQUIDATORISM
In the preceding articles (Pravda, Nos. 289, 299 and 314) we have shown
that all the Marxists, both in 1908 and in 1910, irrevocably condemned
Liquidatorism as the renunciation of the past. The Marxists explained to
the working class that Liquidatorism is the instilling of bourgeois influence
into the proletariat. And all the Liquidatorist publications, from 1909
up to 1913, flagrantly violated and are still violating the decisions of the
Marxists.
Let us consider the slogan, an "open labour party," or "a struggle for
an open party," which is still being advocated by the Liquidators in the
Luch and Nasha Zarya.
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS 505
Is this a Marxian, proletarian, or a liberal, bourgeois slogan?
The answer to this question must be sought not in the moods or the
plans of the Liquidators or of other groups, but in the analysis of the inter-
relation of the social forces of Russia in the present period. The meaning
of slogans is determined not by the intentions of their authors, but by the
correlation of forces of all the classes in the country.
The feudal landowners and their "bureaucracy" are hostile to all changes,
in the direction of political liberty. This is understandable. The bour-
geoisie, because of its economic position in a backward and semi-feudal;
country, cannot but strive for freedom. But the bourgeoisie fears the activ-
ity of the people more than it fears reaction. The year 1905 demonstrated
this truth with particular clarity; this truth was thoroughly understood
by the working class; it was only the opportunist and semi-liberal intel-
lectuals who failed to understand it.
The bourgeoisie is both liberal and counter-revolutionary. Hence its
impotent and miserable reformism which borders on the ridiculous. Dreams
of reforms — and fear of settling accounts in real earnest with the feudal
landowners, who not only refuse to grant reforms, but even take back those
they have already granted. Preaching reforms — and fear of a popular move-
ment. Striving to oust the feudal landowners — and fear of losing their
support, fear of losing their own privileges. Upon this interrelation of
classes is built up the system of June 3, which gives full power to the feu-
dal landowners and privileges to the bourgeoisie.
The class position of the proletariat makes it altogether impossible
for it to "share" the privileges or to be afraid of anyone losing them. That
is why selfishly narrow, miserable and dull-witted reformism is altogether
alien to the proletariat. As to the peasant masses — they are, on the one
hand, immeasurably oppressed, and instead of enjoying privileges they
suffer from starvation; on the other hand, they are undoubtedly petty-
bourgeois — hence, they inevitably vacillate between the liberals and the
workers.
Such is the objective situation.
From this situation it obviously follows that the slogan of an open la-
bour party is, by its class origin, a slogan of the counter-revolutionary
liberals. It contains nothing save reformism; it does not contain even a hint
that the proletatariat, the only class that is thoroughly democratic, is con-
scious of its task of fighting the liberals for influence over the whole of
democracy; there is not even a suggestion of destroying the very foundation
of all the privileges of the feudal landowners, the "bureaucracy," etc.,
not a thought of the general foundations of political liberty and democratic
constitution; instead, this slogan implies the tacit renunciation of the
old, and consequently it implies renegacy and the dissolution (liquidation)
of the workers' party.
In brief: this slogan carries into the midst of the workers in a period
of counter-revolution the preaching of the very thing the liberal bourgeoi-
506 V. L LENUN
sie is practising in its own midst. Therefore, had there been no Liqui-
dators, the clever bourgeois progressives would have had to find, or hire,
intellectuals in order to preach this to the working class!
Only brainless people can compare the words of the Liquidators with
their motives. It is necessary to compare their words with the deeds and
the objective position of the liberal bourgeoisie.
Look at these deeds. In 1902, the bourgeoisie was in favour of illegality.
Struve was commissioned by it to publish the underground Osvobozhdeniye.
When the labour movement led to October 17, the liberals and the cadets
abandoned illegality, then repudiated it, and declared it to be unneces-
sary, mad, sinful and godless (Vekhi). — Instead of the underground, the
liberal bourgeoisie advocated a struggle for an open party. This is a histor-
ical fact, confirmed by the incessant attempts at legalization made by
the Cadets (1905-07) and the Progressives (1913).
Among the Cadets we see "open work and its secret organization";
the kind-hearted, i.e., unconscious, Liquidator, A. Vlasov, has only
paraphrased the deeds of the Cadets "in his own words."
Why did the liberals renounce illegality and adopt the slogan of "a
struggle for an open party"? Is it because Struve is a traitor? No, just
the opposite. Struve went over to the other side because the entire bourgeoi-
sie turned. And the latter turned: 1) because it obtained privileges and on
December 11, 1905,* and even on June 3, 1907, it was placed in the po-
sition of a tolerated opposition; 2) because it itself was mortally frightened
by the popular movement. The slogan of "a struggle for an open party,"
when translated from the language of "high politics" into plain and intel-
ligible language, means the following:
"Messieurs Landlords! Don't imagine that we want to push you off
the earth. No, just move up a little and make room for us bourgeois"
{an open party) — "we shall then defend you five times more 'cleverly,'
cunningly and more 'scientifically' than the Timoshkins** and Sabler's
priests."***
In imitation of the Cadets, the slogan of "a struggle for an open party"
was taken up by the petty bourgeoisie, the Narodniks. In August 1906,
Messers. Peshekhonov and Co. of Russkoye Bogafstvo renounced illegal-
ity, proclaimed the "struggle for an open party," and cut out from their
program the consistently democratic "underground" slogans.
As a result of these philistines' reformist chatter about a "broad and
open party" they, as is obvious to all, were left without any party at all,
* The date of the promulgation of the law convening the First Duma. — Ed.
** Timoshkins — the appellation applied by Lenin to the reactionary members
of the Duma, of whom the deputy Timoshkin was typical. — Ed.
*** Sabler's priests — the clerical deputies in the third Duma who supported
an extremely reactionary policy and expressed the policy of the tsarist dignitary,
Sabler, then Procurator of the Holy Synod.— Ed.
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS 507
without any contact with the masses, and the Cadets have even left off
dreaming of having such contacts.
Only in this way, only by analysing the position of the classes, by analys-
ing the general history of the counter-revolution, is it possible to under-
stand what Liquidatorism is. The Liquidators are petty-bourgeois in-
tellectuals, sent by the bourgeoisie to sow the seeds of liberal corruption
among the workers. The Liquidators are traitors to Marxism and traitors
to democracy. The slogan of "a struggle for an open party" in their case
(as well as in the case of the liberals and the Narodniks) only serves to
camouflage their renunciation of the past and their rupture with the work-
ing class. This is a fact that has been proved both by the elections in the
workers' electoral colleges for the Fourth Duma and by the history of the
origin of the Pravda, the workers' paper. It was obvious to all that it was
those who had not renounced the past and knew how to make use of "open
work" and of all and sundry "possibilities" exclusively in the spirit of
that past, and for the sake of strengthening, consolidating and developing
it, who had contacts with the masses.
During the period of the Third-of-June regime it could not be other-
wise.
In our next article we shall speak about the "curtailment" of the pro-
gram and tactics by the Liquidators (i.e., liberals).
V. THE SLOGAN OF STRUGGLE FOR AN OPEN PARTY
In the preceding article (Pravda, No. 123) we examined the objective
meaning, i.e., the meaning that is determined by the interrelation of
classes, of the slogan "an open party" or "a struggle for an open party."
This slogan is a slavish repetition of the tactics of the bourgeoisie, for it
correctly expresses its renunciation of the revolution or its counter-rev-
olutionary character.
Let us consider some of the attempts the Liquidators most frequently
make to defend the slogan of "a struggle for an open party." Mayevsky,
S^dov, Dan and all the Luch-ites try to confuse the open Party with open
work or activity. Such confusion is downright sophistry, a trick, decep-
tion of the reader.
In the first place, the open activity of the Social-Democrats during the
period 1904-13 is a fact. Open party is a phraseof the intellectuals, which
covers up the renunciation of the Party. Secondly, the Party has repeated-
ly condemned Liquidatorism, i.e., the slogan of an open party. But the
Party, far from condemning open activities, has, on the contrary, repeated-
ly condemned those who neglected them or renounced them. In the third
place, from 1904 to 1907, open activities were especially developed among
all the Social-Democrats. But not a single tendency, not a single faction
503 V. I. LENIN
of Social-Democracy then advanced the slogan "struggle for an open
party. "
This is a historical fact. It should be pondered over by those who wish
to understand Liquidatorism.
Did the absence of the slogan "struggle for an open party" hamper open
activities in 1904-07? Not in the least.
Why did no such slogan arise among the Social-Democrats at that
time? Precisely because at that time there was no raging counter-revolu-
tion to draw a section of the Social-Democrats into extreme opportunism.
It was only too clear at the time that the slogan "struggle for an open party"
was an opportunist phrase, a renunciation of "illegality."
Gentlemen, try to grasp the meaning of this historical turn: during the
period 1905, when there was a splendid development of open activities,
there was 710 slogan of "struggle for an open party"; during the period
of counter-revolution, when there is a weaker development of open activi-
ties, the slogans of renunciation of "illegality" and "struggle for an
open party" crop up among a section of the Social-Democrats (who follow
in the wake of the bourgeoisie).
Is not the meaning and the class significance of such a turn clear yet?
Finally, the fourth and most important circumstance. Two kinds of
open activity, in two diametrically opposite directions, are possible
(and may be observed): one in defence of the old, and entirely in thespir-
it of the old, in the name of the slogans and the tactics of the old, and an-
other, against the old, in the name of renunciation of the old, the belittling
of the role and slogans of the old, etc.
The existence of these two kinds of open activity, hostile and irrec-
oncilable in principle, in the period from 1906 (the Cadets and Messrs.
Peshekhonov and Co.) to 1913 (the Luch, Nasha Zarya), is a most indispu-
table historical fact. Is it possible to restrain a smile when one hears a
simpleton (or one who for a while plays the simpleton) say: what is there
to quarrel about if both the one and the other carry on open activities?
The dispute, my dear sir, is precisely about whether these activities should
be carried on in defence of "illegality" and its spirit, or in order to degrade
it, against it and not in its spirit! The dispute is only — just "only"l —
about whether the given open work is being conducted in the liberal or
in the consistently democratic spirit. The dispute is "only" about whether
it is possible to confine oneself to openwork: remember Mr. Liberal Struve
who did not confine himself to it in 1902, but wholly "confined himself*
to it in the years 1906-13.
Our Liquidators of the Luch cannot possibly comprehend that the
slogan "struggle for an open party" means carrying into the midst of the
workers liberal (Struve-ite) ideas', tricked out in the rags of "near-Marxian"
catchwords.
Or take, for instance, the arguments of the editors of the Luch them-
selves, in their reply to An (No. 181):
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS 609
"The Social-Democratic Party is not limited to those few com-
rades whom the realities of life force to work underground. Truly,
if the entire Party were limited to illegality, how many members
would it have? Two to three hundred? And where would those thou-
sands if not tens of thousands of workers be, who are actually bear-
ing the brunt of the entire Social-Democratic work?"
For a man of comprehension this argument alone suffices to identify
its authors as liberals. First, they are telling a deliberate untruth about
the "underground." It numbers more than "hundreds." Secondly, all over
the world the number of Party members, as compared with the number of
workers carrying on Social-Democratic work, is "limited." For example,
in Germany there are only one million members in the Social-Democratic
Party, yet the number of votes cast for the Social-Democrats is about
five million, and the proletariat numbers about fifteen million. The propor-
tion of the number of Party members to the number of Social-Democrats
is determined in the various countries by the differences in their histori-
cal conditions. In the third place, we have nothing that could replace
our "underground." Thus, in opposing the Party, the Luch refers to the
non-Party workers, or those who are outside the Party. This is the usual
method of the liberal who tries to cut off the masses from their claas-con-
scious vanguard. The Luch does not understand the relation between
Party and class, just as the "Economists" in 1895-1901 failed to understand
it. In the fourth place, our "Social-Democratic work" is real Social-Dem-
ocratic work only in so far as it is conducted in the spirit of the old,
under its slogans.
The arguments of the Luch are the arguments of liberal intellectuals,
who, unwilling to join the actually existing Party organization, try to
destroy that organization by inciting against it the non-Party, scattered
mass, whose class consciousness is little developed. The German liberals
do the same, alleging that the Social-Democrats do not represent the pro-
letariat since their "Party" comprises "only" one-fifteenth of the prole-
tariat!
Take the even more common argument advanced by the Lwh: "\Ve"
are for an open party, "just as in Europe." The liberals and the Liquida-
tors want a constitution and an open party, "as in Europe" today , but they
do not want the path by which Europe reached that today.
Kossovsky, a Liquidator and Bundist, teaches us in the Lmh to follow
the example of the Austrians. But he forgets that the Austrians have had
a constitution since 1867, and that they could not have had it without:
1) the movement of 1848; 2) the profound political crisis of 1859-66,
when the weakness of the working class allowed Bismarck and Co. to ex-
tricate themselves by means of the famous "revolution from above."
What then is the outcome of the discourses of Kossovsky, Dan, Larin and
all the
610 V. I. LENIN
The only outcome is that they help to solve our crisis in the spirit
of "revolution" necessarily "from above"! But such work is precisely
the "work" of a Stolypin Labour Party.
No matter where we look — we see the Liquidators renouncing both Marx-
ism and democracy.
In the next article we shall examine in detail their arguments concern*
ing the necessity of curtailing our Social-Democratic slogans.
VI.
We must now consider the curtailment of Marxian slogans by the Liqui-
dators. For this purpose it would be best to take the decisions of their
August conference, but for obvious reasons it is possible to analyse these
decisions only in the press published abroad. Here we are obliged to quote
the Luch, which, in the article by L. S., in its issue No. 1C8 (194), gave
a remarkably precise exposition of the whole essence, the whole spirit of
Liquidatorism.
Mr. L. S. writes as follows:
"The deputy Muranov so far recognizes only three partial de-
mands, which, as is known, were the three pillars of the electoral
platform of the Leninists: the complete democratization of the
state system, an eight-hour day and the transfer of the land to-
the peasants. The Pravda, too, continues to maintain this point of
view. Yet we, as well as the whole of European Social-Democracy^
(read — "we, and also Milyukov, who assures us that, thank God,,
we have a constitution"), "see in the advancing of partial demands
a method of agitation which may be crowned with success only if
it reckons with the everyday struggle of the working masses. We
think that only that which, on the one hand, is of fundamental im-
portance for the further development of the latour movement, and
on the other hand, may acquire urgency for the masses, should be
advanced as the partial demand upon which, at the given moment
the Social-Democrats should concentrate their attention. Of the
three demands advanced by the Pravda, only one — the eight-hour
day — plays and can play a part in the everyday struggle of the work-
ers. The other two demands may at the present moment serve as
subjects for propaganda, but not for agitation. Concerning the dif-
ference between propaganda and agitation, see the brilliant pages,
of G. V. Plekhanov's pamphlet, The Struggle Against Famine.991
(L. S. has got into the wrong box; it is "painful" for him to recall1
Plekhanov's controversy in 1899-1902 with the "Economists" whom
L. S. is copying!)
"Apart from the eight-hour day, the demand for the right of
association, the right to form any kind of organization, with the
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS 511
corresponding right of assembly and speech, both oral and printed,,
is a partial demand advanced both by the requirements of the labour
movement and by the entire course of Russian life."
Here we have the tactics of the Liquidators. What L. S. describes by
the words "complete democratization, etc.," and what he calls the "trans-
fer of the land to the peasants" are not , you see, of "urgency for the masses,""
they are not advanced "by the requirements of the labour movement"
and "the entire course of Russian life." How old are these arguments and
how familiar are they to those who remember the history of Russian Marx-
ian practice, its many years of struggle against the "Economists," who
renounced the tasks of democracy! With what talent the LucTi copies the
views of Prokopovich and Kuskova, who in those days tried to entice
the workers on to the liberal path!
However, let us examine the arguments of the Luch more closely. From
the point of view of common sense these arguments are sheer madness.
Is it really possible to assert, without having taken leave of one's senses,
that the above-mentioned "peasant" demand (i.e., one that is to ben-
efit the peasants) is not of "urgency for the masses"? is not "advanced
both by the requirements of the labour movement and by the entire course
of Russian life"? This is not only an untruth, it is a howling absurdity.
The entire history of Russia in the nineteenth century, the entire "course
of Russian life" has advanced that question, has made it urgent, nay, most
urgent. This has been reflected in the whole of the legislation of Russia-
How could the Luch arrive at such a monstrous untruth?
It had to arrive at it, because the Luch is in bondage to liberal policy
and the liberals are true to themselves when they reject (or, like the
Luchy put off) the peasants' demand. The liberal bourgeoisie does so,
because its class position forces it to humour the landlords and to oppose
the people's movement.
The Luch brings to the workers the ideas of the liberal landlords and
is guilty of treachery to the democratic peasantry.
Furthermore, can it be that only the right of association is of "urgen-
cy"? What about the inviolability of person? or the abolition of despotism
and tyranny? or universal, etc., suffrage? or a single Chamber, etc?
Every literate worker, everyone who bears in mind the recent past, knows
extremely well that all this is urgent. In thousands of articles and speeches
all the liberals acknowledge that all this is urgent. Why then did
the Luch declare only one of these, albeit one of the most important of
liberties, to be urgent, while the fundamental conditions of political
liberty, of democracy and of a constitutional regime were struck out,
put off, relegated to the archives of "propaganda," and excluded from
agitation?
The reason, and the only reason, is that the Luch does not accept what
is unacceptable to the liberals.
From the standpoint of urgency for the masses, of the requirements
512 V. 1. LENIN
of the labour movement and of the course of Russian life, there is no differ-
ence between the three demands of Muranov and of the Pravda (or, to
put it briefly, the demands of consistent Marxists). The demands of the
workers and the demands of the peasants and the general political demands
are all of equal urgency for the masses, they are all equally advanced to
the forefront both by the requirements of the labour movement and "the
•entire course of Russian life." All three demands are also alike from the
standpoint of the "partialness" dear to our worshipper of moderation and
•accuracy: they are "partial" in relation to the final aims, but they are very
high in relation, for example, to "Europe" in general.
Why then does the Luck accept the eight-hour day and reject the rest?
Why did it decide for the workers that the eight-hour day does "play a
part" in their everyday struggle whereas the general political and peasant
Demands do not play such a part? Facts show, on the one hand, that the
workers in their daily struggle advance general political as well as peasant
demands — and, on the other hand, that they often fight for more moderate
reductions of the working day.
What is the trouble, then?
The trouble lies in the reformism of the Luch, which, as usual, attrib-
utes its own liberal narrow-mindedness to the "masses," to the "course
of history," etc.
Reformism, in general, means that people confine themselves to agita-
tion for changes which do not require the removal of the main foundations
of the old ruling class, changes that are compatible with the preservation
of these foundations. The eight-hour day is compatible with the preserva-
tion of the power of capital. The Russian liberals, in order to attract the
workers are themselves prepared to endorse ("as far as possible") this
demand. On the other hand, those demands for which the Luch does not
"want to "agitate" are incompatible with the preservation of the founda-
tions of the pre-capitalist period, the period of serfdom.
The Luch eliminates from the agitation precisely that which is not
acceptable to the liberals, who do not want to abolish the power of
the landlords, but want only to share their power and privileges. The
Luch eliminates precisely that which is incompatible with the point of
view of reformism.
That's the whole point!
Neither Muranov, nor the Pravda, nor any Marxist rejects partial
demands. That is nonsense. Take insurance, for example. We reject the
deception of the people by idle talk about partial demands by means of
reformism. We reject as Utopian, self-seeking and false the liberal reform-
ism in present-day Russia, the reformism based on constitutional illu-
sions and full of the spirit of servility to the landlord. That is the point
which the Luch tries to confuse and hide by phrases about "partial
demands" in general, although it itself admits that neither Muranov nor
£he Pravda rejects certain "partial demands."
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS 613
The Luch curtails the Marxian slogans, tries to fit trem into the
ideas
The struggle the Marxists waged against the Liquidators is nothing
r ? ?*preSSlon °f ^e struggle of the progressive workers against thf
1 »*""** ™ the maSSCS °f the P«>ple> for their
tenment and education.
Published in separate issues
of the Pravda Nos. 85 (289),
95 (299), 110 (314), 123 (327),
124 (328) and 126 (330) of April
25 [12], May 9 [April 26], May
28 [15], June 12 [May 30], June 13
[May 31] and June 15 [2], 1913
33—685
DISRUPTION OF UNITY UNDER COVER
OF OUTCRIES FOR UNITY
The questions concerning the present-day working-class movement
are in many respects vexed questions, particularly for the representatives
of the recent past of this movement (i.e., of the stage which historically
has just drawn to a close). In the forefront of these questions stand the
questions of so-called factionalism, schismatism, and so forth. One often
hears the intellectuals who participate in the working-class movement
making nervous, feverish, almost hysterical appeals not to raise these
vexed questions. Those who experienced the long years of conflict between
the various trends among the Marxists since 1900-01, for example, may
naturally think it superfluous to repeat many of the arguments on the sub-
ject of these vexed questions.
But not many are left today who took part in the fourteen years* con-
flict among the Marxists (not to speak of the eighteen or nineteen years'
conflict counting from the appearance of the first symptoms of "Econo-
mism"). The overwhelming majority of the workers now in the ranks of
the Marxists either do not remember the old conflict, or have no knowledge
of it at all. To the overwhelming majority (as, incidentally, was shown
by the enquiry instituted by our magazine), these vexed questions are
a matter of exceptionally great interest. We therefore intend to deal with
these questions, which have been raised as it were anew (and for the young-
er generation of the workers they are really new) by Trotsky's "non-
factional workers' magazine," Borba (Struggle).
I. "FACTIONALISM"
Trotsky calls his new magazine "non-factional." He puts this word
in the top line in his advertisements; this word is stressed in every key
in the editorial articles in the Borba itself, as well as in the Liquidatorist
Severnaya JRabochaya Oazeta (Northern Workers' Gazette), where an article
by Trotsky on the Borba was published before that magazine appeared.
What is "non-factionalism?"
514
DISRUPTION OF ,UNITY B15
Trotsky's "workers' magazine" is Trotsky's magazine for workers,
for it bears no trace either of workers' initiative in founding it, or of con-
nection with working-class organizations. Desiring to write in a popular
style, Trotsky in his workers' magazine, explains for the benefit of his
readers the meaning of such words as "territory," "factor," and so forth.
This is very good. But why not also explain to the workers the meaning
of the word "non-factionalism"? Is that word more intelligible than the
words "territory" and "factor"?
No, that is not the reason. The reason is that by means of the label
"non-factionalism," the worst representatives of the worst remnants of
factionalism mislead the younger generation of workers. It is worth while
devoting a little time to explaining this.
Factionalism was the main distinguishing feature of the Social-Demo-
cratic Party in a definite historical period. Which period? From 1903 to 1911.
To explain the nature of this factionalism more clearly we must recall
the concrete conditions that existed in, say, 1906-07. At that time, the
Party was united, there was no split, but factionalism existed, i.e.,
in the united party there were in fact two factions, two actually separate
organizations. The local workers' organizations were united, but on every
important issue the two factions drew up two sets of tactics. The advocates
of the respective tactics disputed among themselves in the united workers '
organizations (as was the case, for example, during the discussion of the
slogans: Duma, or Cadet, Cabinet, in 1906, or during the elections of del-
egates for the London Congress in 1907), and questions were decided
by a majority vote. One faction was defeated at the Stockholm Unity Con»
gress (1906), the other was defeated at the London Unity Congress (1907).
These are commonly known facts in the history of organized Marxism
in Russia.
It is sufficient to remember these commonly known facts to realize
what glaring falsehoods Trotsky is spreading.
Since 1912, for over two years, there has been no factionalism among
the organized Marxists in Russia, no controversies over tactics in united
organizations, at united conferences and congresses. There is a complete
breach between the Party, which in January 1912 formally announced
that the Liquidators do not belong to it, and the Liquidators.* Trotsky
often calls this state of affairs a "split," and with this appellation we will
deal separately later on. But it remains an undoubted fact that the term
"factionalism" is misleading.
As we have said already, this term is a repetition, an uncritical, sense*
less, meaningless repetition of what was true yesterday , i.e., in a period
that has already passed. When Trotsky talks to us about the "chaos of
factional strife" (cf. No. 1. pp. 5, 6 and many others) we realize at once
which period of the past his words echo.
* See this volume pp. 494-95.— Ed.
33*
616 V. I. LENIN
Examine the present state of affairs from the viewpoint of the young
Russian workers who now constitute nine- tenths of the organized Marxists
in Russia. They see three mass expressions of the different views, or trends
of the working-class movement: the "Pravda-ites" gathered around a news-
paper with a circulation of 40,000, the "Liquidators" (15,000 circulation)
and Left Narodniks (10,000 circulation). The circulation figures reveal to
the reader the degree to which the respective tenets bear a mass character.
THe question is, what has "chaos" to do with the subject? Trotsky is
fond of sonorous and empty catchphrases, everybody knows that, but the
catchword "chaos" is not only a catchword, in addition, it signifies the trans-
planting (or rather, a vain attempt to transplant) to Russian soil, in the
present period, the relations that existed abroad in a bygone period. This is
the whole point.
* There is no "chaos" whatever in the struggle between the Marxists
and the Narodniks. It is to be hoped that even Trotsky will not dare to as-
sert that there is. The struggle between the Marxists and the Narodniks
has been going on for over thirty years, ever sinceMarxism came into being.
The cause of this struggle is the radical divergence of interests and view-
points of two different classes, the proletariat and the peasantry. If there
is any "chaos" anywhere, it is only in the heads of cranks who fail to un-
derstand this.
What, then, remains? "Chaos" in the struggle between the Marxists
and the Liquidators? This, too, is wrong, for a struggle against a trend
which the entire Party recognized as a trend and condemned as far back
as 1908, cannot be called chaos. And everybody who has the least regard
for the history of Marxism in Russia knows that Liquidatorism is most
closely and inseverably connected, even as regards its leaders and support-
ers, with "Menshevism" (1903-08) and "Economism" (1894-1903). Hence,
here, too, we have a history extending over nearly twenty years. Any-
body who regards the history of his own Party as "chaos" shows that he
is an utter numbskull.
But let us examine the present situation from the point of view of Paris,
or Vienna. At once the whole scene changes. In addition to the "Pravda-
ites" and "Liquidators," we see no less than five Russian "factions,"
i.e., separate groups which claim membership of the Social-Democratic
Party: Trotsky's group, two Vperyod groups, the "Pro-Party Bolsheviks"*
and the "pro- Party Mensheviks." All Marxists in Paris and in Vienna
(for the purpose of illustration I take two particularly large centres)
are perfectly well aware of this.
* Pro-Party Bolsheviks — an exceedingly small group of conciliators who
were dubbed by Lenin "inconsistent Trotsky ites." The group of conciliators
included amongst others Kamenev, Rykov and Zinoviev. Together with the Liqui-
dators, the Vperyod-itcB, Trotsky and others, the conciliators carried on a bitter
fight against Lenin and opposed the decisions adopted at the Prague Conference. —
Ed.
DISRUPTION OF UNITY &1?
Here Trotsky is right in a certain sense; this is indeed factionalism,
this is indeed chaos 1
"Factionalism," i.e., nominal unity (all claim that they belong to
one Party) and actual disunity (for, in fact, all the groups are independent
of each other and enter into negotiations and agreements with each other
as sovereign powers).
"Chaos," i.e., the absence of (1) objective and verifiable proof that these
factions have connections with the working-class movement in Russia,
and (2) absence of any data to enable us to judge the actual ideological
and political features of these factions. Take a period of two full years —
1912 and 1913. As everybody knows, this was a period of revival and growth
of the working-class movement, when every trend or tendency which bore
anything of a mass character (and in politics this mass character alone
counts) could not help exercising some influence in the Fourth Duma elec-
tions, in the strike movement, in the legal newspaper, in the trade unions,
in the insurance election campaign, and so forth. Throughout these two
years not a single one of these five factions abroad asserted itself in the
slightest degree in any of the activities of the mass working-class movement
in Russia just enumerated!
This is a fact that anybody can easily verify.
And this fact proves that we are right when we say that Trotsky is a
representative of the "worst remnants of factionalism."
Although he claims to be non-factional, Trotsky is known to everybody
who is in the least familiar with the working-class movement in Russia as
the representative of "Trotsky's faction" Here there is factionalism, for
we see the two essential symptoms of it: (1) nominal recognition of unity
and (2) group segregation in fact. Here there are remnants of factionalism,
for there is no evidence whatever of any real connection with the mass
working-class movement in Russia.
And lastly, it is the worst form of factionalism, for there is no ideolo-
gical and political definiteness. It cannot be denied that both the Prav-
da-itcs (even our determined opponent L. Martov admits that we stand
"solid and disciplined" around universally known formal decisions on
all questions) and the Liquidators (they, or at all events the most prom-
inent of them, have very definite features, namely Liberal and not Marx-
ian) possess this definiteness.
It cannot be denied that some of the factions which, like Trotsky's
faction, exist exclusively from the Vienna-Paris, but by no means from
the Russian point of view, possess a certain amount of definiteness. For
example, the Mach-ite theories of the Mach-ite Vperyod group are definite;
the emphatic repudiation of these theories and defence of Marxism, in
addition to the theoretical condemnation of Liquidatorism by the "pro-
Party Mensheviks," is definite.
Trotsky, however, possesses no ideological and political definiteness,
for his patent for "non-factionalism" is merely (as we shall soon see in
518 V. I. LENIN
greater detail) a patent to flit freely to and fro, from one faction to
another.
To sum up:
1) Trotsky does not explain, nor does he understand, the historical
significance of the ideological disagreements among the various Marxian
trends and factions, although these disagreements run through the twenty-
years' history of Social-Democracy and concern the fundamental ques-
tions of the present-day (as we shall show later on);
2) Trotsky fails to understand that the main specific features of fac-
tionalism is nominal recognition of unity and actual disunity;
3) Under cover of "non-factionalism," Trotsky is championing the
interests of one of the factions abroad, the faction which particularly lacks
definite principles and has no basis in the working-class movement in
Russia.
All that glitters is not gold. There is much glitter and sound in Trotsky 's
phrases, but they are meaningless.
II. THE SPLIT
We are told: "Although there is no factionalism., i.e., nominal recogni-
tion of unity, but actual disunity, among you, Pravda-ites, there is
something worse, namely, schismatism." This is exactly what is said by
Trotsky who, unable to think out his ideas or to put any logic into his
phrases, raises a howl against factionalism at one moment, and at another
moment shouts: "schismatism is winning one suicidal victory after anoth-
er" (No. 1, p. 6).
This statement can have only one meaning: "The Pravda-ites are win-
ning one victory after another" (this is an objective, verifiable fact, es-
tablished by a study of the mass working-class movement in Russia dur-
ing, say, 1912 and 1913), but /, Trotsky ', denounce the Prawfo-ites (1)
as schismatists, and (2) as suicidal politicians.
Let us examine this.
First of all we will express our thanks to Trotsky: Not long ago (from
August 1912 to February 1914) he was at one with F. Dan, who, as is
well known, threatened to "kill" anti-Liquidatorism, and called upon
others to do so. At present, Trotsky does not threaten to "kill" our trend
(and our Party — don't be angry Citizen Trotsky, this is true), he only
prophecies that it will kill itself!
This is much milder, isn't it? It is almost "non-factional," isn't it?
But let us put joking aside (although joking is the only way of retort-
ing mildly to Trotsky's intolerable phrasemongering).
"Suicide" is a mere catchphrase, an empty phrase, mere "Trotskyism."
Schismatism is a serious political accusation. This accusation is repeat-
ed against us in a thousand keys by the Liquidators and by all the above
DISRUPTION OP UNITY &19
enumerated, actually existing — from the viewpoint of Paris and Vienna —
groups.
And all of them repeat this serious political accusation in an amazingly
irresponsible way. Look at Trotsky. He admitted that "schismatism is
winning (read: the Pravda-ites are winning) one suicidal victory after
another." And to this he adds:
"N um er o u s advanced workers, in a state
of utter political bewilderment, them-
selves often become active agents of a
split" (No. 1, p. 6).
Is it possible to find a more glaring example of irresponsibility on this
question than that revealed by these words?
You accuse us of being schismatists when the only thing that confronts
us in the arena of the working-class movement of Russia is Liquidatorism.
Hence, you think that our attitude towards Liquidatorism is wrong?
And indeed, all the groups abroad that we enumerated above, no matter
how much they may differ from each other, are agreed that our attitude
towards Liquidatorism is wrong, that it is "schismatic."
This, too, reveals the similarity (and fairly close political kinship)
between all these groups and the Liquidators.
If our attitude towards Liquidatorism is wrong in theory, in principle,
then Trotsky should say so straightforwardly, and state definitely, without
equivocation, why he thinks it is wrong. But Trotsky has been evading
this extremely important point for years.
If the practical experience of the movement proves that our attitude
towards Liquidatorism is refuted, then this experience should be analysed;
but Trotsky fails to do this, too. "Numerous advanced workers," he admits,
"become active agents of a split" (read: active agents of the Pravda-ite
line, tactics, system and organization).
What is the cause of the deplorable fact, which, as Trotsky admits,
is confirmed by experience, that the advanced workers, and numerous
advanced workers at that, stand for Pravda?
The "utter political bewilderment" of these advanced workers, answers
Trotsky.
Needless to say, this explanation is extremely flattering to Trotsky,
to all five factions abroad, and to the Liquidators. Trotsky is very fond
of giving, "with a learned air of an expert," in pompous and sonorous
terms, explanations of historical phenomena that are flattering to Trotsky.
Since "numerous advanced workers" become "active agents" of a politi-
cal and Party line which does not harmonize with Trotsky's line, Trotsky
settles the question unhesitatingly, straight off the bat: these advanced
workers are "in a state of utter political bewilderment," while he, Trotsky,
is evidently "in a state of" political firmness and clarity, and keeps to the
right linel . , . And this very same Trotsky, beating his breast, denounces
520 V, I. LENIN
factionalism, coterie methods, and the efforts of intellectuals to impose
their will on the workers I ...
Reading things like these, one involuntarily asks oneself: Is it
from a lunatic asylum that these voices come?
The Party submitted the question of Liquidatorism, and of condemning
it, to the "advanced workers" as far back as 1908, and the question of "split-
ting" from a very definite group of Liquidators (namely, the Nasha
Zarya group), i. e.9 that the only way to build up the Party was without this
group and in opposition to it — this question it submitted in January 1912,
over two years ago. The overwhelming majority of the advanced workers
expressed themselves in favour of supporting the "January (1912) line."
Trotsky himself admits this fact when he talks about "victories" and about
"numerous advanced workers." But Trotsky wriggles out of this simply
by hurling abuse at these advanced workers and calls them "agents of a
split" and "politically bewildered"!
Sane people will draw a different conclusion from these facts. Where the
majority of the class-conscious workers have rallied around precise and
definite decisions there is unity of opinion and action, there is the Party
spirit, and the Party.
Where we see Liquidators who have been "dismissed from their posts" by
the workers, or a half a dozen emigre groups who for two years have pro-
duced no proof whatever that they are connected with the mass working-class
movement in Russia, there, indeed, bewilderment and schism reigns. In
trying, now, to persuade the workers not to carry out the decisions of that
"body" which the Marxist Pravda-ites recognize, Trotsky is trying to dis-
organize the movement and to cause a split.
These efforts are vain, but we must expose the arrogantly conceited lead-
ers of coteries of intellectuals who, while causing splits, are shouting about
others causing splits, who, after suffering utter defeat at the hands of the
"advanced workers" for the past two years or more, are with incredible in-
solence spurning the decisions and the will of these advanced workers and
saying that they are "politically bewildered. "These are precisely the meth-
ods of Nozdrev, or of that Judas, Golovlev.
In reply to these repeated outcries about a split, we, fulfilling our duty
as a publicist, will not tire of repeating precise9 unrefuted and irrefutable
figures. During the Second Duma elections, 47 per cent of the deputies elect-
ed by the workers' curia were Bolsheviks, in the Third Duma elections 50
per cent were Bolsheviks, and in the Fourth Duma elections 67 per cent.
This is where the majority of the "advanced workers" are. This is where
the Party is. This is where unity of opinion and action of the majority of the
class-conscious workers prevails.
In reply to this the Liquidators .say (e/. Bulkin and L. M. in issue No.
3 of Nasha Zarya) that we base our arguments on Stolypin curiae. This is a
foolish and unscrupulous objection. The Germans measure their election
successes under the Bismarck franchise law, which excludes women. Only
DISRUPTION OF UNITY 621
people bereft of their senses would reproach the German Marxists for meas-
uring their successes under the given franchise law, without in the least
justifying its reactionary restrictions.
And we, too, without justifying curiae, or the curia system, measured
our successes under the existing franchise law. There were curiae in all three
(Second, Third and Fourth) Duma elections, and within the workers ' curia,
within the ranks of Social-Democracy, there was a complete swing against
the Liquidators. Those who do not wish to deceive themselves and others
must admit this objective fact of the victory of working-class unity over the
Liquidators.
The other objection is no less "clever": "Mensheviks and Liquidators
voted for (or took part in the election of) such-and-such a Bolshevik."
Splendid I But does not the same thing apply to the 53 per cent non-Bol-
shevik deputies who were elected to the Second Duma, to the 50 per cent
elected to the Third Duma, and to the 33 per cent elected to the Fourth
Duma?
If, instead of the figures of the deputies elected, we could obtain the
figures of the electors, or workers' delegates, etc., we would gladly quote
them. But such more detailed figures are not available, and consequently
the "objectors" are simply throwing dust in the eyes of the public.
But what about the figures of the workers' groups which assisted the
newspapers of the different trends? During two years (1912 and 1913), 2,801
groups assisted the Pravda, and 740 assisted the Luch.* Anybody can verify
these figures, and nobody has attempted to disprove them.
Where is the unity of action and will of the majority of the "advanced
workers," and where is the thwarting of the will of the majority?
Trotsky's "non- factionalism" is, in fact, schism, in that it most unblush-
ingly thwarts the will of the majority of the workers.
III. THE COLLAPSE OF THE AUGUST BLOC
But there is still another method, and a very important one, of verifying
the correctness and truthfulness of Trotsky's accusation of schismatism.
You are of the opinion that it is the "Leninists" who are schismatists?
Very well, let us assume that you are right.
But if you are right, why have not all the other factions and groups
proved that unity is possible with the Liquidators without the "Leninists,"
and in opposition to the "schismatists"? ... If we are schismatists, why
have not you uniters, united among yourselves, and with the Liquidators?
Had you done that you would have proved to the workers by deeds that
unity is possible and beneficial 1 . . .
* A preliminary calculation made up to April 1, 1914, showed 4,000 groups
for Pravda (commencing from January 1, 1912) and 1,000 for the Liquidators
and all their allies put together.
522 V. X. LENIN
Let us go over the chronology of events.
In January 1912, the "Leninist" "schismatists" declared that they were
a Party without and in opposition to the Liquidators.
In March 1912, all the groups and "factions": Liquidators, Trotsky-
ites, Fperyod-ites, "pro- Party Bolsheviks" and "pro- Party Mensheviks,"
united in their Russian newspapers, and in the columns of the German So-
cial-Democratic newspaper Vorwarts. All of them unanimously, in chorus,
inui^ison and inone voice vilified us and called us "usurpers," "mystifiers,"
and other no less tender and endearing names.
Very good, gentlemenl But what would have been easier than for you to
unite against the "usurpers" and to set the "advanced workers" an exam-
ple of unity? Don't you think that if the advanced workers had seen the
unity ot all against the usurpers, united Liquidators and non-Liquidators
on one side, and isolated "usurpers," "schismatists," and so forth, on the
other, they would have supported the former??
If disagreements are only imagined, or inflated, and so forth, by the
"Leninists," and if unity between the Liquidators, Plekhanovites, Vper-
2/od-ites, Trotskyites, and so forth, is indeed possible, why have you not
proved this during the past two years by your example?
In August 1912, a conference of "uniters" was convened. At once dis-
unity broke out; the Plekhanovites refused to attend at all; the Vperyod-ites
attended, but entered a protest and withdrew and then exposed the utterly
fictitious character of the whole business.
The Liquidators, the Letts, the Trotskyites (Trotsky and Semkovsky),
the Caucasians,* and the seven "united." But did they really unite? We
stated at the time that they did not, that this was merely a cover for Liqui-
datorism. Have events disproved our statement?
Exactly eighteen months later, in February 1914, we found:
1. That the group of seven was breaking up. Buryanov had left them.
2. That in the remaining, new, "six," Chkheidze and Tulyakov, or some-
body else, could not see eye to eye on the reply to be made to Plekhanov.
They stated in the press that they would reply to him, but they could not.
3. That Trotsky, who for many months had vanished from the columns
of the Luch9 had resigned, and had started "his own" journal, Borba. By
calling this journal "non- factional," Trotsky clearly (clearly for those who
are at all familiar with the subject) said that in his, Trotsky's opinion,
tfashaZarya and the Luch had proved to be "factional," i.e., bad uniters.
Since you are auniter, my dear Trotsky, since you say that it is possible
to unite with the Liquidators, since you and they stand by the "funda-
mental ideas formulated in August 1912" (Borba, No. 1, p. 6, "Editorial
note"), why did you yourself not unite with the Liquidators in Nasha Zarya
and the Luch?
* The Caucasians—the Liquidators who attended the August 1912 Conference
of Liquidators as delegates from the Caucasian organization. — Ed,
DISRUPTION OF UNITY 623
Before Trotsky's journal appeared, the Severnaya Rdbochaya Gazefa
published a vicious comment stating that the physiognomy of this journal
was "unclear" and that there had been "rather a lot of talk in Marxist cir-
cles" about this journal. Put Pravdy (No. 37) was naturally obliged to ex-
pose this falsehood. It said: "there was talk in Marxist circles" about a
secret memorandum written by Trotsky against the Luch-itts; Trotsky's
physiognomy and his split from the August bloc were perfectly "clear."
4. An, the well-known leader of the Caucasian Liquidators who had at-
tacked L. Sedov (for which he received a public dressing down from F. Dan
•and Co.) now appeared in the Borba. It remains "unclear" whether the Cau-
casians desire to go with Trotsky or with Dan.
5. The Lettish Marxists, who constituted the only real organi2ation in
the "August bloc," had formally withdrawn from it, stating (in 1914) in
the resolution of their last Congress that
"the attempt on the part of the conciliators
to unite at all costs with the Liquidators
(the August Conference 1912) proved f r u itless9
and the un i t er s themselves became ideologi-
cally and politically dependent on the
Liquidator s."
This was stated after eighteen months' experience by an organization
which had itself been neutral and had not desired to establish connection
with either of the two centres. This decision of neutral people should be all
the more weighty for Trotsky 1
Enough, is it not?
The people who accused us of being schismatists, of being unable, or
unwilling, to live in harmony with the Liquidators, were themselves unable
to live in harmony with them. The August bloc proved to be a fiction and
collapsed.
By concealing this collapse from his readers, Trotsky is deceiving them.
The experience of our opponents has proved that we are right, it has
proved that it is impossible to co-operate with the Liquidators.
IV. A CONCILIATOR'S ADVICE TO THE "SEVEN"
The editorial article in issue No. 1 of the Borba entitled "The Split in
the Duma Group" contains the advice of a conciliator to the seven pro-
Liquidator (or inclining towards Liquidatorism) members of the State
Duma, The gist of this advice is contained in the following words:
"to consult primarily with the six in all cases when it is necessary to
reach an agreement with other groups. ..." (P. 29.)
This is the wise counsel which, among other things, is evidently the cause
of Trotsky's disagreement with the Liquidators of the Luch. The Pravda-
624 V. I. LEW*
ites have held this opinion ever since the outbreak of the conflict between
the two groups in the Duma, ever since the resolution of the summer (1913)
conference* was adopted. The Russian Social-Democratic Labour group
in the Duma has reiterated in the press, even after the split, that it con-
tinues to adhere to this position, in spite of the repeated refusals of the
"seven."
At the very outset, at the time the resolution of the summer conference
was adopted, we were of the opinion, and are now, that agreements on ques-
tions concerning activities in the Duma are desirable and possible. Consider-
ing that such agreements have been repeatedly arrived at with the petty,
bourgeois peasant democrats (Trudoviks), it goes without saying that they
are all the more possible and necessary with the petty-bourgeois, Liberal-
Labour politicians.
We must not exaggerate disagreements, but we must look facts straight
in the face. The "seven" are men who are inclining towards Liquidatorism,
who yesterday entirely followed the lead of Dan, and today are longingly
turning their gaze from Dan to Trotsky and back again to Dan. The Liqui-
dators are a group of legalists who have broken away from the Party and
are pursuing a Liberal-Labour policy. In view of the fact that this group
repudiates the "underground," unity with it in matters concerning Party
organization and the working-class movement is out of the question. Who-
ever thinks differently is profoundly mistaken and fails to take into ac-
count the depth of the changes that have taken place since 1908.
But agreements on certain questions with this group which is outside of,
or near, the Party, are of course permissible; we must always compel this
group, too, like the Trudoviks, to choose between the workers' (Pravda-ite)
policy and the Liberal policy. For example, on the question of fighting for
freedom of the press the Liquidators clearly oscillated between the Lib-
eral formulation of the question, which repudiated, or lost sight of, the
uncensored press, and the opposite policy, the workers' policy.
Within the limits of policy in the Duma, where the most important
extra-Duma questions are not directly raised, agreements with the seven
Liberal-Labour deputies are possible and desirable. On this point Trotsky
has shifted from the Liquidators ' position to that of the Party summer (1913)
conference.
It must not be forgotten, however, that by agreement a group which is
outside the Party means something entirely different from what Party
people usually mean by this term. By "agreement" in the Duma, non-Party
people mean "drawing up a tactical resolution, or line." Party people mean
by agreement an attempt to enlist others in the work of carrying out the
Party line.
* The "summer" or "August" 1913 conference of the Central Committee and
Party workers (termed such for reasons of secrecy) held September 22- October 1,
1913 at Poronino (in the vicinity of Cracow). — Ed.
DISRUPTION OP UNITY 626
For example, the Trudoviks have no Party. By agreement they mean
the "voluntary," so to speak, "drawing up" of a line with the Cadets one
day, and with the Social-Democrats another day. When we, however, speak
of agreement with the Trudoviks we mean something entirely different. We
have Party decisions on all the important questions of tactics, and we will
never depart from these decisions. When we say agreement with the Trudov-
iks we mean winning them to our side, convincing them that we are right,
not rejecting common action against the Black- Hundreds and against the
Liberals.
How far Trotsky has forgotten (after all, his association with the Li-
quidators has had some effect on him!) this elementary difference between
the Party and non- Party point of view on agreements is shown by the
following argument of his:
"The accredited representatives of the International must bring
together the two sections of our divided Parliamentary group and
jointly with them ascertain the points of agreement and points of
disagreement. ... A detailed tactical resolution formulating the
principles of parliamentary tactics may be drawn up. . . ." (No. 1,
pp. 29-30.)
This is a characteristic and typical example of the Liquidatorist method
of formulating the question I Trotsky's journal forgets about the Party;
after all, is such a trifle worth remembering?
When different parties in Europe (Trotsky is fond of talking in and out
of season about Europe-ism) conclude agreements, or unite, they do it
in the following way: their respective representatives meet and first of all
ascertain the points of disagreement (precisely what the International pro-
posed in relation to Russia, without in the least including in the resolution
Kautsky's thoughtless statement that "the old party no longer exists").
After ascertaining the points of disagreement, the representatives decide
what decisions (resolutions, conditions, etc.) on questions of tactics, organ-
ization, etc., should be submitted to the congresses of the two parties. If they
succeed in arriving at unanimous decisions, the congresses decide whether
to adopt them or not. If different proposals are made, they too, are submit-
ted for final decision to the congresses of the two parties.
The Liquidators and Trotsky are "attracted" only by European models
of opportunism, they are not in the least attracted by the European models
of party methods.
"Detailed tactical resolutions" will be drawn up by the members of the
Duma!! This example should serve the Russian "advanced workers," with
whom Trotsky has good reason to be displeased, as a striking illustration of
the lengths to which the coteries in Vienna and in Paris — who persuaded
even Kautsky that there was "no party" in Russia — go in their ludicrous
project-mongering. But although it is sometimes possible to fool foreign-
ers on this score, the Russian "advanced workers" (even at the risk of pro-
626 V. I. LENIN
yoking terrible Trotsky to another outburst of displeasure) will laugh in the
faces of these project-mongers.
"Detailed tactical resolutions," they will tell them/' are drawn up among
us (we don't know how it is done among you non-party people), by party
congresses and conferences, for example, 1907, 8, 10, 12 and 13. We shall
have much pleasure in acquainting uninformed foreigners, and also forget-
ful Russians, with our Party decisions, and still greater pleasure in asking
the representatives of the 'seven,' or 'Augustians,' or 'Levitsians,' or any-
body else, to acquaint us with the resolutions of their congresses, or con-
ferences, and to bring up at their next congresses the definite question of
the attitude they should adopt towards our resolutions, or towards the re-
solution of the neutral Lettish Congress of 1914, etc."
This is what the "advanced workers" of Russia will say to the various
project-mongers, and this has already been said in the Marxist press, for
example, by the organized Marxists of St. Petersburg. Does Trotsky think
fit to ignore these published terms to the Liquidators? The worse for Tro-
tsky. It is our duty to warn our readers that "unity" (the August type of
"unity"?) project-mongering which refuses to reckon with the will of the
majority of the class-conscious workers of Russia is utterly ridiculous.
V. TROTSKY'S LIQUIDATORIST VIEWS
In his new journal Trotsky tried to say as little as possible about the sub-
stance of his own views. Put Pravdy (No. 37) has already noted that Trotsky
did not utter a word either on the question of the "underground" or on the
slogan of fighting for an open party, etc. That, among other things, is why
we say that when attempts are made to form a separate organization which
is to have no ideological and political features, it is the worst form of fac-
tionalism.
But although Trotsky refrained from expounding his views openly, a
number of passages in his journal reveals what ideas he smuggles in surrep-
titiously.
In the very first editorial article, in the first issue of his journal, we read
the following:
"The pre-revolution Social-Democratic Party in this country was
a workers' party only in ideas and aims. Actually, it was an organiza-
tion of the Marxist intelligentsia, which led the awakened working
class " (5)
This is the old Liberal and Liquidator song, which is really the prelude
to the repudiation of the Party. This song is based on a distortion of histori-
cal facts. The strikes of 1895-96 already gave rise to a mass working-class
movement which both in ideas and organization was connected with the
Social-Democratic movement. Did "the intelligentsia lead the working
DISRUPTION OF UNITY
627
class" in these strikes and in this economic and non-economic agita-
tion 11?
Or take the following exact statistics of political offenses in the period
1901-03 compared with the preceding period.
OCCUPATIONS OF PARTICIPANTS IN THE MOVEMENT FOR EMAN-
CIPATION PROSECUTED FOR POLITICAL OFFENSES (PER CENT)
Period
Agriculture
Industry
and
Commerce
Liberal Pro-
fessions and
Students
No definite
occupation,
and no occu-
pation
1884—1890 ...
7.1
15.1
63.3
19.9
1901—1903
9.0
46.1
28.7
8.0
We see that in the 'eighties, when there was as yet no Social-Democratic
Party in Russia, and when the movement was "Narodnik," the intelligent-
sia predominated, they accounted for over half the participants.
But we get an entirely different picture in 1901-03, when a Social-Demo-
cratic Party already existed, and when the old Iskra was active. In this
period the intelligentsia already constitutes the minority among the partic-
ipants in the movement; the workers9 ("industry and commerce") are far
more numerous than the intelligentsia, and the workers and peasants to-
gether constitute more than half the total.
It was precisely in the conflict of trends within the Marxist movement
that the petty-bourgeois intellectual wing of Social-Democracy made itself
felt, beginning with "Economism" (1895-1903) and continuing with "Men-
shevism" (1903-08) and "Liquidatorism" (1908-14). Trotsky repeats the Liq-
uidatorist slander against the Party and is afraid to touch the history
of the twenty- years' conflict of trends within the Party.
Here is another example.
"In its attitude towards parliamentarism, Russian Social-De-
mocracy passed through the same three stages ... [as in other coun-
tries] . . . first 'boycottism' . . . then the recognition of parliamen-
tary tactics in principle, but . . . [that magnificent "but," the very
same "but" which Shchedrin translated as: The ears never grow high-
er than the forehead, never!] . . . for purely agitational purposes . ..
and lastly, the presentation from the rostrum of the Duma . . .
of current demands. . . ." (No. 1, p. 34.)
This, too, is a Liquidatorist distortion of history. The distinction be-
tween the second and third stages was invented in order to smuggle in de-
fence of reformism and opportunism. Boycottism as a stage in "the atti-
tude of Social-Democracy towards parliamentarism" never existed either
in Europe (where there was and still is anarchism) or in Russia, where the
628 V. I. LENIN
boycot of the Bulygin Duma, for example, applied only to a definite in-
stitution, was never linked up with "parliamentarism," and was engendered
by the peculiar nature of the struggle between Liberalism and Marxism for
the continuation of the assault. Trotsky says absolutely nothing at all
about the way this struggle affected the conflict between the two trends of
Marxism 1
When dealing with history one must explain concrete questions and
the clas« roots of the different trends. Anybody who takes the trouble to
study from the Marxist point of view the class struggle and the conflict of
trends over the question of participating in the Bulygin Duma will see the
roots of the Liberal-Labour policy. But Trotsky "deals with" history only
in order to evade concrete questions and to invent a justification, or a sem-
blance of justification, for the present-day opportunists!
"... Actually, all trends," he writes, "employ the same methods
of fighting and building." — "The outcries about the Liberal danger
in our working-class movement are simply a crude, sectarian traves-
ty of reality" (No. 1, p. 5 and p. 35).
This is a very clear defence of the Liquidators, and a very wrathful one.
But we will take the liberty of quoting at least one tiny fact, one of the very
latest. Trotsky merely hurls phrases about; we would like the workers
themselves to ponder over this fact.
It is a fact that the Severnaya Rabochaya Oazeta, of March 13, wrote
the following:
"Instead of emphasizing the definite, con-
crete task thatconfronts the working class,
vi z. , to compel the Duma to throw out the
Bill [on the press], a diffuse formula is pro-
posed of fighting for the 'uncurtailed slo-
gans', and at the same time the illegal press
is widely advertised, which can only lead
to the relaxation of the workers9 struggle
for their legal p r e s s."
This is a clear, precise, documentary defence of the Liquidatorist policy
and a criticism of the Pravda-ite policy. Well, will any literate person say
that both trends employ "the same methods of fighting and building" on
this question? Will any literate person say that the Liquidators are not pur-
suing a Liberal-L&bout policy on this question, that the Liberal danger
in the working-class movement is purely imaginary?
Trotsky avoids facts and concrete references precisely because they re-
lentlessly refute all his angry outcries and pompous phrases. It is quite easy,
of course, to adopt a pose and say: "a crude sectarian travesty." Nor is it
difficult to add a still more stinging and pompous catchphrase, such as
"emancipation from conservative factionalism."
DISRUPTION OF UNITY 629
But isn't this very cheap? Is not this weapon borrowed from the arsenal
of the period when Trotsky posed in all his brilliance before audiences of
highschool boys?
Nevertheless, the "advanced workers," with whom Trotsky is so angry,
would like to be told plainly and clearly: Do you approve of the "method
of fighting and building" that is definitely expressed in the above-quoted
appraisal of a definite political campaign? Yes or no? If you do, then you
are pursuing a Liberal- Labour policy, betraying Marxism and the Party;
and to talk of "peace" or of "unity" with such a policy, with groups which
pursue auch a policy, means deceiving yourself and others.
If not, then say so plainly. Phrases will not astonish, will not satisfy and
will not intimidate the present-day workers.
Incidentally, the policy advocated by the Liquidators in the above-
quoted passage is a foolish one even from the Liberal point of view, for the
passage of a Bill in the Duma depends on "Zemstvo-Octobrists" of the type
of Bennigsen, who showed his cards in committee.
The old participants in the Marxist movement in Russia know Trotsky
very well and there is no need to discuss him for their benefit. But the young-
er generation of workers do not know him, and it is therefore necessary to
discuss him, for he is typical of all the five coteries abroad, which, in fact,
are also vacillating between the Liquidators and the Party.
In the period of the old Libra (1901-03), these waverers, who flitted from
the "Economists" to the "/afcra-ites" and back again were dubbed "Tushino
rovers" (the name given in the Turbulent Times in ancient Rus to soldiers
who roamed from one camp to another).
When we discuss Liquidatorism we discuss a definite ideological trend
which grew up in the course of many years, the roots of which are interlaced
with those of "Menshevism" and "Economism" in the twenty- years' his-
tory of Marxism, and which is connected with the policy and ideology of a
definite class, the Liberal bourgeoisie.
The only ground the "Tushino rovers" have for claiming that they
stand above factions is that they "borrow" their ideas from one faction one
day and from another faction another day.Trotsky was an ardent "Iskra-ite"
in 1901-03, and Ryazanov described his role at the Congress of 1903 as
"Lenin's cudgel." At the end of 1903, Trotsky was an ardent Menshevik,
i.e., he deserted from the Iskra-ites to the "Economists." He said that
there was "a gulf between the old and the new Iskra." In 1904-05, he desert-
ed the Mensheviks and began to oscillate, co-operating with Martynov (the
"Economist") at one moment and proclaiming his incongruously Left "per-
manent revolution" theory the next. In 1906-07, he approached the Bol-
sheviks, and in the spring of 1907 he declared that he was in agreement with
Rosa Luxemburg.
34-686
630 V. I. LENIN
In the period of disintegration, after long "non-factional" vacillation,
he again went to the Right, and in August 1912, he entered into a bloc with
the Liquidators. Now he has deserted them again, although, in substance *
he reiterates their paltry ideas.
Such types are characteristic as the survivals of past historical forma-
tions, of the time when the mass working-class movement in Russia was
still in a state of torpor, and when every coterie had "sufficient scope" in.
which *to pose as a trend, group or faction, in short, as a "power,"
negotiating amalgamation with others.
The younger generation of workers must know thoroughly whom they
are dealing with when people come before them making incredibly preten-
tious claims, but absolutely refusing to reckon with either the Party deci-
sions which since 1908 have defined and established our attitude towards-
Liquidatorism, or with the experience of the present-day working-class
movement in Russia which has actually brought about the unity of the
majority on the basis of full recognition of the aforesaid decisions.
Published in Prosveshcheniye No. 5,
May 1914
THE NEW RISE OF THE
WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT
BEFORE THE
FIRST IMPERIALIST WAR
34»
IN MEMORY OF HERTZEN
On the occasion of the centenary of Hertzen 's birth, the whole of liberal
Russia is paying homage to him, carefully evading, however, the serious
questions of Socialism, and taking pains to conceal that which distin-
guished Hertzen the revolutionary from a liberal. Even the conservative
press is commemorating the Hertzen anniversary, mendaciously asserting
that an his last years Hertzen renounced revolution. And, abroad, phrase-
mongering reigns supreme in the orations on Hertzen by the liberals
and Narodniks.
The working-class party should remember Hertzen — not by indulging
in philistine encomiums, but for the purpose of making clear its own
tasks and ascertaining the proper place held in history by this writer who
played an enormous role in paving the way for the Russian revolution.
Hertzen belonged to the generation of revolutionary nobles and land-
lords of the first half of the past century. The nobility gave Russia the Bi-
rons and Arakcheyevs, innumerable "drunkard officers, bullies, gamblers,
heroes of fairs, whips, roisterers, floggers, pimps," as well as amiable
Manilovs. "But," wrote Hertzen, "among them developed the men of
December 14, a phalanx of heroes reared, like Romulus and Remus, on the
milk of a wild beast. . . . They were titans, hammered out of pure steel
from head to foot, warrior martyrs who knowingly went to certain death
in order to awaken the young generation to a new life and to purify the
children born in an environment of tyranny and servility."
Hertzen was one of those children. The uprising of the Decembrists
awakened and "purified" him. In feudal Russia of the forties of the nine-
teenth century he rose to a height which made him the equal of the great-
est thinkers of his time. He assimilated Hegel's dialectics. He realized
that it was "the algebra of revolution." He went further than Hegel,
following Feuerbach to materialism. The first of his Letters on the Study
of Nature , "Empiricism and Idealism,'" written in 1844, shows us a thinker
who even now stands head and shoulders above the host of modern empir-
icist natural scientists and the swarms of present-day idealist and
semi-idealist philosophers. Hertzen came close to dialectical materialism,
and halted — before historical materialism.
It was this "halt" that caused Hertzen 's spiritual shipwreck after the
defeat of the revolution of 1848. At that time Hertzen had left Russia and
533
634 V. I. LENIN
watched the revolution at close range. He was a democrat at the time, a rev-
olutionary, a Socialist. But his "socialism" was one of the numerous brands
and varieties of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois Socialism characteristic
of the epoch of 1848, which were dealt their death blow in the June days of
that year. In point of fact, this was not Socialism at all, but merely senti-
mental phrases, benign visions, in which was embodied the then rev-
olutionary spirit of the bourgeois democracy, as well as of the proletariat
which had not yet cast off its influence.
Hertzen *s spiritual shipwreck, the profound scepticism and pessimism
to which he fell prey after 1848, was the shipwreck of the bourgeois illusions
of Socialism. Hertzen 's spiritual drama was a product and reflection of that
epoch in world history when the revolutionism of the bourgeois democracy
was already passing away (in Europe), and the revolutionism of the So-
cialist proletariat had not yet ripened. This is something the Russian liber-
al knights of verbal incontinence, who are now trying to cover up their
own counter-revolutionism by florid phrases about Hertzen 's scepticism,
have not understood and cannot understand. With these knights, who be-
trayed the Russian revolution of 1905, and have even forgotten to think of
the great calling of a revolutionary , scepticism is a form of transition from
democracy to liberalism — to that servile, vile, infamous and brutal liber-
alism which shot down the workers in 1848, restored shattered thrones, ap-
plauded Napoleon III and which Hertzen cursed,^ being unable to
understand its class nature.
With Hertzen scepticism was a form of transition from the illusions of
"above-class" bourgeois democratism to the stern, inexorable and invin-
cible class struggle of the proletariat. This is testified to by the "Letters to
an Old Comrade," to Bakunin, written by Hertzen in 1869, a year before
his death. In these letters Hertzen breaks with the anarchist Bakunin.
True enough, Hertzen still sees in this break nothing more than a disagree-
ment on tactics; he does not see the gulf between the world outlook of the
proletarian who is confident of the victory of his class and that of the petty
bourgeois who has despaired of his salvation. True enough, in these letters
Hertzen again repeats the old bourgeois-democratic phrases to the effect
that Socialism must preach "a sermon addressed equally to workman and
master, to farmer and burgher." Nevertheless, in breaking with Bakunin,
Hertzen was turning his gaze not to liberalism but to the International — to
the International led by Marx, to the International which had begun to
"rally the legions" of the proletariat, to unite "the world of labour" "which
is abandoning the world of those who enjoy without working."
Failing as he did to understand 'the bourgeois-democratic essence of the
entire movement of 1848 and of all the forms of pre-Marxian Socialism,
Hertzen was still less able to understand the bourgeois nature of the Russian
IN MEMORY OF HERTZ EN &35
revolution. Hertzen — the founder of "Russian" Socialism, of "Narodism" —
saw "Socialism" in the emancipation of the peasants with land, in
community landownership and in the peasant idea of "the right to the
land.** His pet ideas on this subject he set forth an untold number of times.
Actually, there is not a grain of Socialism in this doctrine propounded
by Hertzen, just as there is none of it in the whole of Russian Narodism,
right down to the faded Narodism of the present-day "Socialist- Revolution-
aries." Like the various forms of "the Socialism of 1848" in the West, this
is the same sort of sentimental phrases, the same sort of benign visions,
embodying the revolutionism of the bourgeois peasant democracy in Russia.
The greater the amount of land the peasants would have received in 1861 and
the cheaper the price they would have had to pay for it, the more strongly
would the power of the feudal landlords have been undermined and the more
rapidly, fully and widely would capitalism have developed in Russia.
The idea of "the right to the land" and of "equal distribution of the land"
represents but the formulated revolutionary aspirations to achieve equality
cherished by the peasants fighting for the complete overthrow of the power
of the landlords, for the complete abolition of landlordism.
This was fully proved by the revolution of 1905. On the one hand, the
proletariat which created the Social-Democratic Labour Party, marched
quite independently at the head of the revolutionary struggle; on the other
hand, the revolutionary peasants (the "Trudoviks" and the "Peasant
League") who fought for every form of the abolition of landlordism, going
as far as demanding "the abolition of private property in land," fought
precisely as proprietors, as small entrepreneurs.
In our day, the verbal controversy over the "Socialist nature" of the
right to land, etc., serves only to obscure and gloss over the really import-
ant and vital historical question regarding the different interests of the
liberal bourgeoisie and the revolutionary peasantry in the Russian bourgeois
revolution; in other words, regarding the liberal and the democratic,
the "compromising" (monarchist) and the republican tendency manifested
in this revolution. This is exactly the question which Hertzen Js Kolokol
{The Tocsin) posed, if we look beyond the words and get down to the
essentials, if we investigate the class struggle as the basis of "theories"
and doctrines and not vice versa.
Hertzen created a free Russian press abroad — that was the great service
which he rendered. The Polyarnaya Zvezda (The Northern Star) carried on
the tradition of the Decembrists. The Kolokol (1857-67) stalwartly cham-
pioned the emancipation of the peasants. The slavish silence was broken.
But Hertzen had a landlord, aristocratic background. When he left
Russia in 1847 he had not seen the revolutionary people and could have
no faith in it. Hence, his liberal appeal to the "upper ranks." Hence, his
numerous sugary letters in the Kolokol addressed to Alexander II the Hang-
man, which cannot be read nowadays without a feeling of disgust. Cher-
nyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, and Serno-Solovyovich, who represented the new
536 V. I. LENIN
generation of revolutionary commoners, were a thousand times right when
they reproached Hertzen for these lapses from democratism to liberal*
ism. However, it must be said in fairness to Hertzen that, much as he
vacillated between democratism and liberalism, the democrat in him as a
rule gained the upper hand.
When Kavelin, one of the most repulsive types representative of liberal
obsequiousness — who at one time was enthusiastic about the Kolokol for
the very reason that it manifested liberal tendencies — came out against
a Constitution, attacked revolutionary agitation, condemned "violence"
and appeals to it, and began to preach tolerance, Hertzen broke with this
liberal sage. Hertzen turned upon his "meagre, absurd, harmful pamphlet**
written "for the private guidance of the Government in its liberal pretense,**
denounced Kavelin 's "sentimental political maxims" which represented
"the Russian people as cattle and the government as the embodiment of
wisdom." The Kolokol printed an article entitled "Epitaph," which lashed
out against "professors weaving the rotten cobweb of their supercilious and
paltry ideas, ex-professors, once unsophisticated and subsequently embit-
tered because the healthy youth cannot sympathize with their scrofulous
thoughts." Kavelin at once recognized himself in this portrait.
When Chernyshevsky was arrested, Kavelin, that infamous liberal,
wrote: "I do not see anything reprehensible in the arrests. . .the revolu-
tionary party considers all means proper for the purpose of overthrowing
the government, and the latter is defending itself by its own means." As
if in retort to this Cadet, Hertzen wrote in his article dealing with Cher-
nyshevsky's trial: "And here are wretches, people comparable to grass
under our feet, slimy creatures, who say that we must not denounce the gang
of robbers and scoundrels who are governing us."
When the liberal Turgenev wrote a private letter to Alexander II as-
suring him of his loyalty and made a donation of two gold pieces for the
soldiers wounded during the suppression of the Polish insurrection, the
Kolokol wrote of "the grey-haired Magdalen (of the masculine gender) who
wrote to the Tsar to tell him that she knew no sleep because she was tor-
mented by the thought that the Tsar was not aware of the repentance that
had befallen her." And Turgenev at once recognized himself.
When the whole crowd of Russian liberals scurried away from Hertzen
for his defence of Poland, when the whole of "educated society" turned its
back on the Kolokol , Hertzen was not dismayed. He went on championing
the freedom of Poland and castigating the suppressors, the butchers, the
hangmen in the service of Alexander II. Hertzen saved the honour of
Russian democracy. "We have saved the honour of the Russian name, "
he wrote to Turgenev, "and that is why we have suffered at the hands of
the slavish majority."
In commenting on a report concerning a serf peasant who killed a
landlord for an attempt to rape his betrothed, Hertzen exclaimed in
the Kolokol: "Well done!" When it was reported that army officers would
IN MEMORY OF HERTZ EN 637
be appointed to superintend the "peaceable" progress of "emancipation,"
Hertzen wrote: "The first wise colonel who, with his troops, instead of
crushing the peasants, will take their side, is sure to ascend the throne
of the Romanovs. w When Colonel Reitern shot himself in Warsaw (I860)
because he did not want to render aid to the hangmen, Hertzen wrote:
"If any shooting is to be done, it is the generals who give orders to fire
upon unarmed people that should be shot.'' When fifty peasants were killed
in Bezdna, and their leader Anton Petrov was executed (April 12, 1861)*
Hertzen wrote in the Kolokol:
"Oh, if only my words could reach you, toiler and sufferer of the
Russian land I ... I would teach you to despise your spiritual shep-
herds, placed over you by the St. Petersburg Synod and a German
tsar. . . . You hate the landlord, you hate the official, you fear
them — and rightly so; but you still believe in the tsar and the
bishop ... do not believe them. The tsar is with them and they are
with the tsar. It is him you now see — you the father of the youth
murdered in Bezdna, and you, the son of a father murdered in
Penza. . . . Your shepherds are as ignorant as you are and as poor as
you. . . . Such was the monk Anthony (not Bishop Anthony, but
Anton of Bezdna) who suffered for you in Kazan. . . . The corpses of
your saints will not perform forty-eight miracles, and praying
to them will not cure a toothache; but their living memory may
produce one miracle — your emancipation."
It is therefore obvious how infamously and vilely Hertzen is slandered
by our liberals entrenched in the slavish "legal" press, who extol the weak
points in Hertzen and keep silent about his strong points. It is not Hertzen 's-
fault, but his misfortune, that he could not see the revolutionary people
in Russia itself in the 1840's. When he did behold the revolutionary people
in the 'sixties he fearlessly took the side of the revolutionary democracy
against liberalism. He fought for a victory of the people over tsardom,.
not for a deal between the liberal bourgeoisie and the landlords' tsar. He
raised aloft the banner of revolution.
In commemorating the Hertzen centenary we clearly see the three
generations and the three classes that were active in the Russian revolu-
tion. At first — nobles and landlords, the Decembrists and Hertzen. The
circle of these revolutionaries was a narrow one. They were frightfully
removed from the people. But their work was not in vain. The Decembrists
awakened Hertzen. Hertzen launched revolutionary agitation.
This agitation was taken up, extended, reinforced, and tempered by
the revolutionary commoners, beginning with Chernyshevsky and ending
with the heroes of the "Narodnaya Volya." The circle of fighters widened,
$38 V. I. LENIN
their contacts with the people became closer. "The young helmsmen of
the impending storm," Hertzen said of them. But as yet it was not the
«torm itself.
The storm is the movement of the masses themselves. The proletariat,
the only class that is revolutionary to the end, rose at the head of the
masses and aroused millions of peasants to open revolutionary struggle.
The first onslaught took place in 1905. The next storm is gathering before
our very eyes.
la commemorating Hertzen, the proletariat is learning from his
•example to appreciate the great importance of revolutionary theory. It
is learning that selfless devotion to the revolution and the work of
revolutionary propaganda among the people are not wasted even if long
decades divide the sowing from the harvest. It is learning properly to
see the role of the various classes in the Russian and in the international
revolution. Enriched by these lessons, the proletariat will fight its way
through to a free union with the Socialist workers of all lands. It will
•crush that vile thing, the tsarist monarchy, against which Hertzen was
the first to raise the great banner of struggle by addressing his free Rus-
sian words to the masses.
JSotsial-Demokrat No. 26,
May 8 [April 25], 1912
POLITICAL PARTIES IN RUSSIA
The elections to the State Duma are compelling all the parties to
intensify their agitation and rally their forces, each party endeavouring
to elect the greatest possible number of "its own" deputies.
In Russia, like in all other countries, these preparations for the elec-
tions are attended by the most brazen self-advertisement. All the bour-
geois parties, that is to say, those that uphold the economic privileges of
the capitalists, are advertising themselves in the same way as individual
capitalists advertise their wares. Take a look at the commercial advertise-
ments in any newspaper: you will see that the capitalists invent the
most "striking," the loudest and most fashionable names for their merchan-
dise, which they praise in the most unrestrained terms, and that abso-
lutely nothing is too preposterous for them.
The public — at any rate in the big cities and trade centres — have
long since become inured to commercial advertisements and know their
•worth. Unfortunately, political self-advertisement misleads an incom-
parably greater number of people, it is much more difficult to expose it,
and its deception is much more tenacious. The names of parties, both in
Europe and in Russia, are often chosen purely for purposes of advertise-
ment, the "programs" of parties are more often than not written with
the sole purpose of defrauding the public. The greater the amount of
political freedom in a capitalist country, the more democracy there is,
i.e., the greater the power of the people and of the popular representa-
tives, the more brazen-faced, as a rule, is the self-advertisement of parties.
Such being the case, how is the public to find its bearings in the fight
among the various parties? Does not this fight with the fraud and public-
ity attending it, signify that representative institutions, parliaments,
assemblies of popular representatives, are worthless and even harmful
on general principles — as the savage reactionaries, the enemies of parlia-
mentarism, are trying to make out? No. In the absence of representa-
tive institutions, there is even much more of deception, political mendac-
ity and all sorts of fraudulent tricks; only the people dispose of fewer
means of exposing the deception, of ascertaining the truth.
In order to find one's bearings in the fight among parties, one must not
take words at their face value, but study the real history of the parties —
study not so much what they say about themselves, but their deeds, how
639
540 V. I. LENIN
they go about solving various political problems, how they behave in
dealing with matters involving the vital interests of the various classes
of society: landlords, capitalists, peasants, workers, etc.
The greater the amount of political freedom in a country, and the more
stable and democratic its representative institutions, the easier is it for
the masses of the people to find their bearings in the inter-party fight and
to learn politics, i.e., to see through the lies and to ascertain the truth.
The division of any society into different political parties becomes
most pronounced in times of profound crises which shake the entire coun-
try. At such times governments are compelled to look for support among
the various classes of society; the serious struggle casts aside all the emp-
ty phrasemongering, all the superficial and extraneous matter; the parties
bend all their efforts and direct their appeal to the masses of the people*
and the masses, guided by their unerring instinct, enlightened by
the experience of the open struggle, follow those parties which represent
the interests of their particular class.
The epochs of such crises, as a rule, determine the party alignment of
the social forces of the given country for many years and even for decades
ahead. In Germany, for instance, such crises were the wars of 1866 and
1870; in Russia such a crisis was the events of 1905. If we are to under-
stand the essence of our political parties, if we are to be clear as to which
classes the various parties represent in Russia, we must go back to the
events of that year.
We shall begin our brief sketch of the political parties in Russia with
the parties of the extreme Right.
On the extreme right flank we find the League of the Russian Nation.
The program of this party is set forth in the following passage from
the RussTcoye Znamya (The Russian Banner), the paper of the League of
the Russian Nation, published by A. I. Dubrovin:
"The League of the Russian Nation, which on June 3, 1907,
was accorded the honour of being called upon from the height of
the Tsar's throne to be its reliable mainstay, and to serve as
an example of law and order to all and in everything, professes
that the will of the Tsar can be exercised only on condition: 1) of
the full manifestation of the Tsar's absolute power, which is in-
dissolubly and vitally bound up with the Russian Orthodox Church,,
canonical ly established; 2) of the domination of the Russian nation-
ality not only in the internal provinces, but also in the frontier
regions; 3) of the existence of a State Duma, made up exclusively
of Russian men, as main assistant of the Absolute Monarch in
his labours to build up the state; 4) of the complete observance of
the principles of the League of the Russian Nation in regard to
the Jews; and 5) of the removal froip government service of all
officials who are opponents of the Tsar's autocratic power."
POLITICAL PARTIES IN RUSSIA a*1
We have copied this solemn declaration of the Rights word for word,
on the one hand, in order to acquaint the reader with the original it-
self, and, on the other, because the fundamental motives set forth in it
arc representative of the motives of all the parties of the majority in the
Third Duma, i.e.9 of the "Nationalists" and Octobrists as well. This
will be brought out in the further exposition.
To all intents and purposes, the program of the League of the Russian
Nation repeats the old slogan of the days of serfdom, viz.: Orthodoxy,
Autocracy, Nationality. In regard to the question on which the League
of the Russian Nation is generally considered as differing from the other
parties in the Right camp — namely, recognition or repudiation of "con-
stitutional" principles in the Russian state systems — it is particularly
important to note that the League of the Russian Nation is by no means
opposed to representative institutions on general principles. It is evi-
dent from the program copied above that the League of the Russian Na-
tion is in favour of the existence of a State Duma playing the part of
"assistant."
Moreover, the specific nature of the Russian Constitution — if we
may call it that — is correctly stated by the Dubrovinite, i.e., his state-
ment accords with the actual state of affairs. This is the stand taken by
the Nationalists and Octobrists, too, in their practical politics. The
controversy between these parties over the "Constitution" is largely a
fight over words: The Rights are not opposed to a Duma, only they are
especially eager to emphasize that it must be an "assistant," while in
no way defining its rights. Nor do the Nationalists and the Octobrists,
for their part, insist on any strictly defined right; in fact, the question
of real guarantees of rights is furthest from their minds. The "Consti-
tutionalists" of the Octobrist camp are fully at one with the "opponents
of Constitution" in their support of the Constitution of June 3.
The program of the Black-Hundreds is plain, clear and outspoken on
the point of baiting non- Russians in general and Jews in particular. As
is generally the case, they speak out more rudely, brazenly and ebullient-
ly, saying aloud what the other Government parties are more or less
"bashfully" or diplomatically keeping to themselves.
In actual fact, the Nationalists and the Octobrists — as is well known
to everyone who is to any extent familiar with their activity in the Third
Duma, or with their press organs, like the Novoye Vremya, Svyet, (Light),
Golos Moskvy (The Voice of Moscow) — have a hand in the baiting of
non- Russians.
The question is: What is the social basis of the Right parties? What
class do they represent? What class do they serve?
Their reversion to the slogans of serfdom, their upholding of all that
is old, of all that is mediaeval in Russian life, their complete satisfaction
with the Constitution of June 3 — the landlords * Constitution — and their
defence of the privileges of the nobility and the bureaucracy — all this
542 V. I. LENIN
provides a clear answer to our question. The Rights are the party of the
feudal landlords, of the Council of the United Nobility. Not for nothing
did that very Council play such a prominent — nay, a leading — role in
the dispersal of the Second Duma, the change of the electoral law and
the coup d'ltat of June 3.
To get an idea of the economic strength of this class in Russia we need
but mention the following fundamental fact, proved by the data of the
government statistics of landownership in 1905, statistics published by
the Ministry of the Interior.
Less than 30,000 landlords in European Russia own 70,000,000 dessiat-
ins of land. A similar amount of land is owned by 10,000,000 peasant
households with the smallest allotments. Thus we have an average of
about 2,300 dessiatins per big landlord, and, in the case of the poor peas-
ants, an average of 7 dessiatins of land — per family, per household.
It is quite natural and inevitable that on such an "allotment" the peas-
ant cannot live; all he can do is die by slow stages. The recurring spells
of famine affecting millions, like this year's famine, continue to play
havoc with the husbandry of the peasants in Russia following each crop
failure. The peasants are obliged to rent land from the landlords paying
for it in various forms of labour. In exchange for the land, the peasant
works for the landlord with his horse and his implements. This is the
same corvee, only it is not officially called serfdom. With 2,300 dessiatins
of land, on an average, at their disposal the landlords, inmost cases, run
their estates only by keeping the peasants in bondage, by the system of
labour rent, that is to say, the corvee system. They cultivate only part
of their huge estates with the help of hired labourers.
Further, that same class of the landed nobility supplies the state with
the overwhelming majority of all higher and intermediate officials. The
privileges of the officialdom in Russia represent another side of the priv-
ileges and agrarian power of the landed nobility. It is therefore obvious
that the Council of the United Nobility and the "Right" parties are up-
holding the policy of the old feudal traditions not as a matter of accident,
but as a matter of inevitability, not because of the "ill will" of individ-
uals, but under pressure of the interests of a tremendously powerful
class. The old ruling class, the survivals of landlordism, remaining the
ruling class as heretofore, has created for itself a party after its own fash-
ion—the "League of the Russian Nation" or the "Rights" in the State
Duma and in the Council of the Empire.
But, since there exist representative institutions, and since the masses
have already come out openly in the political arena, as they did in
Russia in 1905, each party is bound, within certain limits, to appeal
to the populace. Now, in the name of what can the Right parties appeal
to the people?
Of course, they cannot speak openly of defending the interests of the
landlords. That is why they speak of preserving the old traditions in gen-
POLITICAL PARTIES IN RUSSIA &4$
cral, that is why they spare no efforts to foment distrust toward non-
Russians, particularly toward Jews, to incite the utterly ignorant and
t|be utterly benighted to pogroms, to Jew-baiting. The propaganda for
maintaining the privileges of the nobility, the officials and the land*
lords is disguised with talk about the "oppression" of Russians by
aliens*
Such is the "Right" party. One of its members, Purishkevich, most
prominent spokesman of the Rights in the Third Duma, has worked a
lot, and successfully, to show the people what the Rights want, how
they act, whom they serve. Purishkevich is a gifted agitator in this
respect.
Next to the Rights, who have forty-six seats in the Third Duma, are
the "Nationalists" with ninety-one seats. There is hardly a shade of
difference between them and the Rights. In fact these are not two parties,
but two sections of one party which have divided between themselves
the "labour" of baiting non-Russians, "Cadets" (liberals), democrats,
etc, The ones are acting more rudely, the others are a bit more refined,,
but both are doing the same thing. Indeed, it is to the government's
advantage not to be fully identified with the "extreme" Rights who are
capable of perpetrating every sort of scandal, pogrom, the murder
of people like Hertzenstein, Yollos, Karavayev, to make it appear that
they are "criticizing" the government from the right. . . . No real sig-
nificance can be attached to the distinction between the Rights and
the Nationalists.
The Octobrists in the Third Duma are one hundred and thirty-one strong,
including, of course, the "Right Octobrists." There is nothing essential-
ly different in the present policy of the Octobrists distinguishing them
from the Rights, the difference between them consisting in the fact that,
in addition to the landlords, the Octobrist Party serves also the interests
of the big capitalists, the conservative merchants, the bourgeoisie which
has taken such fright at the awakening of the workers, and then of the
peasants, to independent political life, that it turned heart and soul
to the defence of the old ways. There are capitalists in Russia — and quite
a number of them, too — whose treatment of the workers is not a whit
better than the treatment of the serfs of old at the hands of the landlords;
they look upon workers and clerks as their menials, as servants. Nobody
is better fitted to defend these old ways than the "Right" parties, the
Nationalists and the Octobrists. There is also the brand of capitalists
who at the Zemstvo and municipal congresses in 1904 and 1905 demanded
a "Constitution," but in their hostility to the workers are fully willing
to be content with the Constitution of June 3.
The Octobrist Party is the principal counter-revolutionary party of
the landlords and capitalists. It is the leading party of the Third Duma:
the 131 Octobrists with the 137 Rights and Nationalists constitute a
solid majority in the Third Duma.
544 V* I. LENIN
The electoral law of June 3, 1907 guarantees the landlords and
the big capitalists a majority: the landlords and the electors of the first urban
curia (i.e., the big capitalists) have a safe majority in all the provincial
assemblies electing deputies to 'the Duma. In 28 provinces the landown-
ers alone have a majority in the provincial electoral assemblies. The
•entire policy of the Third-of-June Government has been carried out
with the assistance of the Octobrist Party, and this party bears the
responsibility for all the sins and crimes committed by the Third
Duma.
In words, in their program, the Octobrists uphold a "Constitution"
and even — liberties! Actually, this party supported all the measures
taken against the workers (the insurance bill, for one thing — recall
the conduct of the Chairmdn of the Duma Committee on Labour, Baron
Tiesenhausen!), against the peasants, and against any restriction of
tyranny and persecution. The Octobrists are as much a Government
party as the Nationalists. The position is not the least bit altered by the
fact that once in a while — particularly on the eve of elections! — the
Octobrists make "oppositionary" speeches. In all countries, wherever
parliaments exist, it has been observed from time immemorial that the
bourgeois parties indulge in this sort of playing at opposition — a harm-
less game as far as they are concerned, because no government takes it
seriously; a game which they consider it useful to play on occasions
for the benefit of the voters whom it is necessary to "grease" by a show
of opposition.
However, the greatest expert, the virtuoso, at the game of opposition
is the principal opposition party of the Third Duma — the Cadets,
Constitutional-" Democrats," the "People's Freedom Party."
The very name of the party is part of the game; for it is in no wise
a democratic party, and by no manner of means a people's party; it is
a party, not of freedom, but of half-freedom or, rather, of quarter-
freedom.
In actual fact, it is the party of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie,
which dreads the popular movement far more than reaction.
The democrat has faith in the people, faith in the movement of the
masses, and he renders this movement every assistance, although enter-
taining at times (such are the bourgeois democrats, the Trudoviks) wrong
ideas about the significance of this movement within the framework of
the capitalist system. The democrat sincerely strives to put an end to
all the survivals of mediaevalism.
The liberal fears the movement of the masses; he tries to impede it,
and deliberately defends certain institutions of mediaevalism — in fact,
the most important of them — as a bulwark against the masses, partic-
ularly against the workers. The aspiration of the liberals is by no
means to destroy all the foundations of the power of the Purish-
keviches, but to share power with them. The democratic petty bourgeois
POLITICAL PARTIES* IN RUSSIA 545
(such as the peasant and the Trudovik) says: Everything for the people
and through the people. He sincerely strives to uproot all the founda-
tions of Purishkevichism, without, however, realizing the meaning of
the struggle of the wage workers against capital. The real aim of the
liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, on the other hand, is to share power
with Purishkevich and rule with him over the workers and over the small
proprietors.
In the First and the Second Dumas the Cadets had a majority or occu-
pied a leading position. They used their position for a senseless and in-
glorious game: When facing the right they played at loyalty and at being
of ministerial timber (we, they said in effect, are able to solve all the
contradictions by peaceable means, in such a way as not to spoil the
muzhik and not to harm Purishkevich); when facing the left they played
at democratism. In the end the Cadets, as a result of this game, got kicks
from the right. On the left they quite deservedly earned the name of
traitors to the cause of the people's freedom. In the First and the Second
Dumas they fought all the time, not only against the working-class
democracy, but also against the Trudoviks. We need but recall the
fact that the Cadets helped defeat the plan proposed by the Trudoviks
for the setting up of local land committees (in the First Duma), a plan
based on the most elementary requirements of democracy, on the
very ABC of democracy. The Cadets thus upheld the predominance of
the landlords and officials over the peasants in the land-regulating
commissionsl
In the Third Duma the Cadets have played at a "responsible Oppo-
sition," an opposition with the possessive case. As such, they voted time
and again for the Government Budgets (some "democrats"!), explained
to the Octobrists that there was nothing dangerous or reprehensible
in their plan of "compulsory" redemption (compulsory for the peasants) —
recall the speech of Berezovsky the First; they commissioned Karaulov
to deliver "pious" speeches from the rostrum of the Duma, renounced the
movement of the masses, addressed their appeals to the "upper crust,"
and obstructed the efforts of the lower ranks (the Cadets ' fight against the
workers' deputies on the question of workers' insurance), and so on and
so forth.
The Cadets are the party of counter-revolutionary liberalism. By
their claim to the role of a "responsible Opposition," that is to say, a
recognized, lawful opposition permitted to compete with the Octobrists,
an opposition not to the regime established on June 3, but of that re-
gime— the Cadets have definitely crossed themselves off from the rolls as
"democrats." The shameless Vekhi-ite preachment of the Cadet ideol-
ogists, such as Messrs. Struve, Izgoyev and Co., who earned the ardent
kisses of Rozanov and Anthony, Bishop of Volhynia, and the role ot
the Cadet Party as "responsible Opposition" in the Third Duma,
are two sides of the same medal. The liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie,
36—685
546 V. I. LENIN
tolerated by the Purishkeviches, is trying to get a scat next to Purish-
kevich.
The bloc formed by the Cadets with the "Progressives" at present,
for the elections to the Fourth Duma, has provided additional proof of
the profoundly counter-revolutionary nature of the Cadets. The Progres-
sives have no claims whatever to being democrats, they have not a word
to say about fighting the entire Third-of-June regime, and they have
never harboured the idea of "universal suffrage" even in their dreams. They
are moderate liberals who do not make a secret of their kinship with the
Octobrists. The alliance between the Cadets and the Progressives must
open the eyes of even the blindest "yes-men of the Cadets" to the real
essence of that party.
The democratic bourgeoisie of Russia is represented by the Narodniks
of all shades, from the most leftist among the Socialist- Revolutionaries
to the Popular Socialists and Trudoviks . They all readily bandy "Social-
ist" phrases, but it would be impermissible for a class-conscious worker
to be deceived as to the real meaning of these phrases. Actually, there is
not a grain of Socialism in any "right to the land," or in any "equal
distribution" of the land, or in the "sociali2ation of the land." This is
something that should be clear to everyone who knows that the abolition
of private property in land and a new, even the "fairest possible," dis-
tribution of the land, far from infringing on commodity production and
the domination of the market, money and capital, contributes to their
even wider development.
However, the phrases about "the principle of labour" and "Popular
Socialism" express the democrat's profound faith in the possibility and
indispens ability of doing away with all the survivals of mediaevalism
in agriculture and, at the same time, in the political system (and his
sincere striving for this). Whereas the liberals (the Cadets) strive to share
political power and political privileges with the Purishkeviches, the
Narodniks are democrats for the reason that they are striving, and must
strive, at present to abolish all the privileges of landed property and all
privileges in politics.
Such is the position of the great bulk of the Russian peasantry that it
cannot even entertain the thought of any compromise with the Purishke-
viches (something entirely possible, accessible and dear to the heart of
the liberals). That is why the democratism of the petty bourgeoisie is
sure to have mass roots in Russia for quite a long time to come, whereas
Stolypin's agrarian reform, that expression of the Purishkeviches' bour-
geois policy against the muzhik, has so far produced nothing durable,
save the — starvation of thirty million peasants 1
The millions of starving small proprietors cannot help striving for
a different kind of agrarian reform, a democratic agrarian reform, which
cannot transcend the bounds of capitalism or abolish wage-slavery, but can
sweep the survivals of mediaevalism from the face of the Russian land.
POLITICAL PARTIES IN RUSSIA M7
The Trudoviks are an extremely small group in the Third Duma, but
they represent the masses. The vacillation of the Trudoviks between the
Cadets and the working-class democracy is the inevitable result of
the class position of the small proprietors, and the special difficulties
attending the job of rallying, organizing and enlightening these small
proprietors are at the root of the extreme indefiniteness and amorphous-
ness of the Trudoviks as a party. That is why the Trudoviks, with the
aid of the stupid "Otzovism" of the Left Narodniks, present the sad
picture of a liquidated party.
The difference between the Trudoviks and our own near-Marxist
Liquidators is that the former are Liquidators because of their weakness,
whereas the latter are Liquidators with malice aforethought. The task
of the working-class democrats is to help the weak petty-bourgeois
democrats, wrest them from the influence of the liberals, rally the demo-
cratic camp against the counter-revolutionary Constitutional-Democrats,
and not only against the Rights.
As regards the working-class democracy, which had its group in
the Third Duma, we can say here but little.
Everywhere in Europe the parties of the working class took shape in the
process of casting off the influence of the general democratic ideology,
while learning to distinguish between the struggle of the wage workers
against capital and the struggle against feudalism — doing this, among
other things, for the sake of lending strength to the latter struggle, for
the sake of ridding it of any wavering and timidity. In Russia the work-
ing-class democracy drew a distinct line between itself and both the liber-
als and the bourgeois democrats (the Trudoviks), thus contributing enor.
mously to the cause of the democracy as a whole.
The Liquidatorist trend among the working-class democrats (Nasha
Zarya and Zhivoye Dyelo) shares the weakness of the Trudovik trend,
glorifies amorphousness, longs for the status of a "tolerated" opposition,
repudiates the hegemony of the workers, confines itself to words about
an "open" organization (while heaping abuse on the organization which
does not function openly), advocates a liberal labour policy. The connec-
tion between this trend and the dispersion and spirit of decadence
characteristic of the period of counter-revolution is obvious; and it
is clear that this trend is dropping away from the working-class
democracy.
The class -conscious workers are liquidating nothing, but are rallying
their ranks in opposition to the liberal influences, organizing as a class,
developing all forms of trade union and other unity, and coming forward
both in the capacity of representatives of wage labour against capital and
as representatives of consistent democracy against the entire old regime
in Russia and against any concessions to that regime.
85*
548 V. I. LENIN
By way of illustration, we give below the figures relating to the
strength of the various parties in the Third Duma, which we take from
the official Duma Handbook for 1912.
PARTIES IN THE THIRD DUMA
L andlords
Rights 46
Nationalists 74
Independent Nationalists 17
Right Octobrists 11
Octobrists 120
Total Government parties . 268
The Bourgeoisie
Progressives 36
Cadets 52
The Polish Kolo 11
Polish-Lithuanian-Byelorussian Group .... 7
Moslem Group 9
Total Liberals ... 115
Bourgeois Democrats
The Trudovik Group 14
W o r k i n g-C lass Democrats
Social-Democrats . . 13
Total Democrats ... 27
Non-Partisans 27
Grand total 437
Thus there were two majorities in the Third Duma: 1) the Rights and
the Octobrists =268 out of 437; 2) The Octobrists and Liberals =120+
115=235 out of 437. Both majorities were counter-revolutionary.
Nevskaya Zvezda No. 5,
May 23 [10], 1912
THE REVOLUTIONARY RISE
The huge May Day strike of the proletariat of all Russia and the ac-
companying street demonstrations, revolutionary proclamations, and
revolutionary speeches to gatherings of workers, have clearly shown
that Russia has entered the phase of a rise in the revolution.
This rise has not come as a bolt from the blue. No, the way has been
paved for it over a long period of time by all the conditions of Russian
life, and the mass strikes in connection with the Lena shootings and May
Day only marked its definite arrival. The temporary triumph of the
counter-revolution was attended by a decline in the mass struggle of the
workers. The number of strikers gives, although only an approximate,
yet an absolutely objective and precise idea of the extent of this strug-
gle.
During the ten years preceding the revolution, from 1895 to 1904,
the average number of strikers was 43,000 per annum (in round figures)-
in 1905— 2,750,000, in 1906— 1,000,000, in 1907—750,000. The three years
of the revolution were marked by a rise in the strike movement of the
proletariat unparalleled anywhere in the world. Its decline, which began
in 1906 and 1907, became definite in 1908, when there were 175,000 strik-
ers. The coup d etat of June 3, 1907, which restored the autocratic rule
of the tsar in alliance with the Duma of the Black-Hundred landlords
and commercial and industrial magnates, was the inevitable result of
the flagging of the revolutionary energy of the masses.
The three years 1908-10 were the period of the high tide of the Black-
Hundred counter-revolution, of liberal bourgeois renegacy and of pro-
letarian despondency and disintegration. The number of strikers stead-
ily dropped, reaching 60,000 in 1909 and 50,000 in 1910.
However, a marked change set in at the end of 1910. The demonstra-
tions in connection with the death of Murottitsev the liberal and of Leo
Tolstoy, and also the student movement, clearly indicated that a fresh
breeze had begun to blow, that a change had taken place in the mood of
the democratic masses. The year 1911 witnessed a gradual switching
over on the part of the worker masses to an offensive: the number of
strikers rose to 100,000. Signs from various quarters indicate that the
fatigue, the stupor generated by the triumph of the Counter-revolution,
is passing away, that once again the tendency is towards revolution. In
549
650 V. I. LENIN
summing up the situation, the All-Russian Conference held in January
1912 stated:
"The commencement of a political revival is to be observed
among wide sections of the democracy and, above all, among the
proletariat. The workers' strikes in 1910-11, the beginning of dem-
onstrations and proletarian mass-meetings, the beginning of a
movement among the urban bourgeois democrats (student strikes),
etc. — are all manifestations of the growing revolutionary senti-
ments among the masses against the Third-of-June regime." (See
the "Announcement" of the Conference, p. 18.)*
By the second quarter of this year these sentiments had become so
pronounced that they manifested themselves in actions on the part of
the masses, and created a revolutionary rise. The course of events during
the past year and a half shows with perfect clarity that there is nothing
accidental in this rise, that its advent is quite natural, that it is an
inevitability conditioned by the whole of Russia's previous develop-
ment*
The Lena shootings served as the stimulus which transformed the rev-
olutionary temper of the masses into a revolutionary revival of the masses.
Nothing is more false than the liberal invention, which is repeated
after the Liquidators by Trotsky and the Vienna Pravda, that "the struggle
for the freedom of association is the basis of both the Lena tragedy and
the powerful response it found in the country." Freedom of association
was neither the specific nor the principal demand in the Lena strike. It
was -not the lack of the freedom of association that the Lena shootings
revealed, but the lack of freedom — from provocation, the lack of rights
in general, the lack of freedom from wholesale tyranny.
The Lena shootings, as we have already made clear in the Sofsial-
Demokra', No. 26, were an exact reflection of the entire regime of the
Third-of-June monarchy. It was not the struggle for one of the rights
of the proletariat — even though one of the cardinal, one of the most im-
portant rights — that was characteristic of the Lena events. What was
characteristic of these events was the complete absence of elementary re-
spect for law of any kind. The characteristic feature was that an agent-
provocateur, a spy, an Okhrana agent, a menial of the tsar, resorted to
mass shootings without any political reason whatever. It is precisely
this general tyranny in Russian life, it is precisely the hopelessness and
impossibility of waging a struggle for particular rights, precisely this
incorrigibility of the tsar's monarchy and of its entire regime, that stood
out so clearly against the background of the Lena events that they fired
the masses with revolutionary ardour.
* See "The Present Situation and the Tasks cf the Party," Lenin, Selected
Works, Eng. ed., Vol. IV,— Ed,
THE REVOLUTIONARY RISE 551
The liberals have been straining every nerve to represent the Lena events
and the May Day strikes as a trade union movement and a struggle for
"rights." But, to everyone who is not blinded by the liberal (and Liqui-
datorist) controversies something different is obvious. What is obvious
is the revolutionary character of the mass strike, especially emphasized
by the St. Petersburg May Day proclamation, issued by various groups
of Social-Democrats (and even by one group of Socialist- Revolutionary
workers!), which we reprint in full in our news section, and which repeats
the slogans advanced by the All-Russian Conference of the Russian So-
cial-Democratic Labour Party in January 1912.
For that matter, it is not even the slogans so much that provide the
main corroboration of the revolutionary character of the strikes in con-
nection with the Lena events and May Day. The slogans formulate what
the facts show. The mass strikes spreading from district to district, their
enormous growth, the rapidity with which they spread, the boldness of
the workers, the greater frequency of mass meetings and revolutionary
speeches, the demand to cancel the fines imposed for celebrating May
Day, the combination of the political and the economic strike, familiar
to us from the time of the first Russian revolution — all these are obvious
indications of the true character of the movement, namely, that it is
a revolutionary rise of the masses.
Let us recall the experience of 1905. Events show that the tradition
of the revolutionary mass strike is alive among the workers and that the
workers at once took up and revived this tradition. The strike wave of
1905, unparalleled in the world, combining the political and economic
strike, involved 810,000 strikers during the first, and 1,277,000 during
the last quarter of the year. According to approximate estimates, the
strikes in connection with the Lena events involved some 300,000 work-
ers, the May Day strikes — 400,000, and the strike movement still con-
tinues to grow. Every fresh issue of the newspapers — even of the liberal
newspapers — brings news showing how the strike conflagration is spread-
ing. The second quarter of 1912 is not quite over, yet even now we have
definite indications of the fact that, as regards the magnitude of the strike
movement, the beginning of the revolutionary rise in 1912 is not tow-
er but rather higher than the corresponding beginning in 19051
The Russian revolution was the first to develop on a large scale this
proletarian method of agitation, of rousing and consolidating the masses
and of drawing them into the struggle. Now the proletariat is applying
this method once again and with an even firmer hand. No power on earth
could achieve what the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat is achiev-
ing by this method. A huge country, with a population of 150,000,000
spread over a vast area, scattered, oppressed, deprived of all rights, igno-
rant, fenced off from "evil influences" by a swarm of authorities, police,
spies — the whole of this country is beginning to get into a ferment. The
most backward strata both of the workers and of the peasants are coming
563 V. 1. LENIN
into direct or indirect contact with the strikers. Hundreds of thousands
of revolutionary agitators are at once appearing on the scene. Their
influence is infinitely increased by the fact that they are indissolubly
connected with the rank and file, with the masses, they remain in their
ranks, fight for the most urgent needs of every workers 'family, combine
with this immediate struggle for the daily economic needs their
political protest and struggle against the monarchy. For counter-revolu-
tion has roused in millions and tens of millions of people a bitter hatred
for the monarchy, it has given them the rudiments of an understanding
of the part played by it, and now the slogan of the advanced workers of
the capital — Long live the democratic republic! — is making constant
headway, spreading through thousands of channels, in the wake of every
strike, reaching the backward strata, the remotest places, the "people,**
"the depths of Russia"!
Very characteristic is the dissertation on strikes by the liberal, Se-
veryanin, which was welcomed by the Russkiye Vyedomosti and approv-
ingly reprinted in the Bech:
"Have the workers any grounds for adding economic or any
[I] demands to a May Day strike?" asks Mr. Severyanin; and he an-
swers: "I make bold to think that they have none. Every economic
strike can and must be begun only after a serious consideration
of its chances of success. . . . That is why more often than not it is
unreasonable to connect such strikes with May Day. ... It would
be even rather strange to do so: Here you are celebrating the inter-
national workers ' holiday, and you take the occasion to demand
a ten per cent raise on calico of such and such grades."
This is how the liberal reasons! And this piece of unexampled vul-
garity, meanness and vileness is approvingly accepted by the "best" liber-
al papers which claim to be democratic!
The coarse greediness of a bourgeois, the vile cowardice of a counter-
revolutionary— that is what is concealed behind the florid phrases of the
liberal. He wants to safeguard the pockets of the employers. He wants an
"orderly," "harmless" demonstration in favour of the "right of associa-
tion"! But the proletariat, instead of this, is drawing the masses into
a revolutionary strike, which indissolubly links up politics with economics,
a strike which wins the support of the most backward strata by the success
of the struggle for an immediate improvement in the workers ' standard
of life, and which, at the same time, rouses the people against the tsarist
monarchy.
Yes, the experience of 1905 created a deep-rooted and great tradition
of mass strikes. And it must not be forgotten to what these strikes in Rus-
sia lead. Stubborn mass strikes are indissolubly bound up in our country
With armed insurrection.
THE REVOLUTIONARY RISE 563
Let these words not be misinterpreted. It is by no means a question
of a call for an uprising. Such a call would be most unwise at this juncture.
It is a question of establishing the connection between strike movements
and insurrection in Russia.
How did the uprising grow in 1905? In the first place, mass strikes,
demonstrations and meetings caused clashes between the populace and the
police and troops to become more frequent. Secondly, the mass strikes
roused the peasantry to a number of partial, sporadic, semi-spontaneous
uprisings. Thirdly, the mass strikes very rapidly spread to the army and
navy, causing clashes on economic grounds (the "bean" and similar "muti-
nies") and, subsequently, insurrections. Fourthly, the counter-revolution-
ary forces themselves started civil war by pogroms, the beating up of
democrats, etc.
The Revolution of 1905 resulted in defeat not because it went "too
far," or because the December uprising was "artificial," as is the opinion
of the renegades among the liberals, etc. On the contrary, the cause of the
defeat was that the uprising did not go far enough, that the consciousness
of its necessity was not sufficiently widespread and was not thorough-
ly assimilated by the revolutionary classes, that the uprising was not unan-
imous, determined, organized, simultaneous, aggressive.
Let us now see whether signs of a gathering uprising can be observed
at the present time. In order not to be carried away by revolutionary
enthusiasm, let us take the testimony of the Octobrists . The German Union
of Octobrists in St. Petersburg consists mainly of so-called "Left" and
"constitutional" Octobrists, who are particularly popular among the
Cadets, and who are most capable (in comparison with the other Octobrists
and Cadets) of observing events "objectively," without making it their
aim to frighten the authorities with the prospect of revolution.
The St. Petersburger Zeitung, the organ of these Octobrists, wrote
the following in its weekly political review of May 6 [19]:
"May has come. Regardless of the weather, this is usually not
a very pleasant month for the inhabitants of the capital, because
it begins with the proletarian 'holiday.' This year, with the impres-
sion of the Lena demonstrations still fresh in the minds of the work-
ers, May Day was particularly dangerous. The atmosphere of the
capital, saturated with all sorts of rumours about strikes and de-
monstrations, portended a conflagration. Our trusty police were
perceptibly agitated; they organized searches, arrested some persons
and held in readiness large posses to prevent street demonstrations.
The fact that the police found nothing more clever to do than to
raid the editorial offices of the workers' papers and arrest their edi-
tors does not testify to a particularly profound understanding of tfce
wires by which the puppet regiments of the workers are pulled.
Yet such wires exist. This is borne out by the disciplined char-
554 V. I. LENIN
acter of the strike and by many other circumstances. That is why
this May Day strike, the biggest of all we have witnessed so far,
is so ominous — some 100,000 or perhaps even 150,000 workers of
big and small workshops struck. It was only a peaceful parade,
but the solidarity of this army was remarkable. It was all the more
ominous since, in addition to the recent excitement among the work-
ers, other alarming symptoms were noted. On various naval ves-
sels, sailors were arrested for conducting revolutionary propaganda.
Judging by all the information which has found its way into
the press, the situation is not very good on our naval vessels, which
are not numerous as it is. ... The railwaymen are also giving cause
for worry. Nowhere, it is true, did things reach the stage of even
an attempt to organize a strike, but arrests, including such a signifi-
cant case as the arrest of A. A. Ushakov, an assistant station mas-
ter on the Nikolayevskaya Railway, show that a certain danger lurks
there, too.
"The revolutionary attempts of immature worker masses can,
of course, have only a harmful effect on the result of the forthcoming
elections to the Duma. These attempts are the more unreasonable . . *
in view of the appointment of Manukhin by the Tsar . . . and the
passing of the workers' insurance bill by the Council of the
Empire. . . ."!!
Those are the reflections of a German Octobrist. We, on our part, must
remark that we have received precise first-hand information about the
sailors, and this information proves that the matter has been exaggerated
and inflated by the Novoye Vremya. The Okhrana is obviously "work-
ing" in a provocative fashion. Premature attempts at an uprising would
be utterly unwise. The working-class vanguard must understand that the
principal requisite for a timely, i.e., successful, armed uprising in Russia
is the support of the working class by the democratic peasantry and the
active participation of the armed forces.
Mass strikes in revolutionary epochs have their objective logic. They
scatter hundreds of thousands and millions of sparks in all directions — and
all around there is inflammable material resulting from extreme bitter-
ness, unprecedented starvation, boundless tyranny, shameless and cynical
mockery at the "pauper," the "muzhik," the private soldier. Add to this
the unbridled Jew-baiting and incitement to pogroms carried on by the
Black-Hundreds and stealthily fostered and directed by the Court gang
of the dull-witted and bloodthirsty Nicholas Romanov. . . . "So it was,
so it will be" — these revealing words uttered by the Minister Makarov will
rebound to his own doom, to the doom of his class and his landlord tsar!
The rising revolutionary temper of the masses imposes great and re-
sponsible duties on every Social-Democratic worker, on every honest
democrat. "Every possible support to the incipient movement of the
THE REVOLUTIONARY RISE 565
masses [now we should say: the already launched revolutionary movement
of the masses], which must be expanded on the basis of the slogans of the
Party fully applied" — this is how the All-Russian Conference of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party defined these duties. The Party
slogans — a democratic republic, the eight-hour day, the confiscation of
all the landed estates — must become the slogans of the entire democracy,
the slogans of the peoples9 revolution.
In order to support and extend the movement of the masses, we need
organization and more organization. Without an illegal Party it is impossible
to conduct this work, and it is quite useless engaging in idle talk about it.
In supporting and extending the onslaught of the masses we must carefully
take into account the experience of 1905, and while explaining the need
for and inevitability of an uprising, we must warn against and put a re-
straining hand upon premature attempts. The growth of mass strikes, the
enlistment of other classes in the struggle, the state of the organizations,
the temper of the masses — all this will of itself indicate the moment when
it will be necessary for all forces to unite in a unanimous, determined,
aggressive, supremely bold onslaught of the revolution upon the tsarist
monarchy.
Without a victorious revolution there will be no freedom in Russia.
Without the overthrow of the tsarist monarchy by a proletarian and
peasant uprising, there will be no victorious revolution in Russia.
Sotsial-Demokrat No. 27,
June 17 [4], 1912
TWO UTOPIAS
Utopia is a Greek word, composed of "u" meaning "no" and "topos"
meaning "place." Utopia means no place; it is a fantasy or invention,
a place in Fairyland.
In politics Utopia is a wish that can never come true, neither now nor
hereafter — a wish that is not based on social forces and that derives no
strength from the growth and the development of political, class forces.
The less freedom there is in a country, the scantier the manifestations
of open class struggle and the lower the standard of enlightenment of the
masses, the more easily will political Utopias usually arise and the longer
will they persist.
In contemporary Russia two kinds of political Utopias have persisted
most and, because of their attractiveness, have exerted a certain influ-
ence over the masses. These are the liberal Utopia and the Narodnik
Utopia.
The liberal Utopia consists in the belief that it is possible to secure
improvements in Russia, in its political liberty and in the position of the
working people, peacefully and harmoniously, without offending anyone,
without removing the Purishkeviches, without ruthless, consistent class
struggle. This is the Utopia of peace between a free Russia and the Purish-
keviches .
The Narodnik Utopia is the dream of the Narodnik intellectuals and
the Trudovik peasants who conceive it possible that a new and just division
of the land can abolish the power and rule of capital and do away with
wage slavery, or who imagine that a "just," "equalitarian" division of the
land can be maintained under capitalism, under the rule of money, under
commodity production.
What engenders these Utopias and why their fairly strong persistence
in contemporary Russia?
They are engendered by the interests of the classes which fight the old
order, serfdom, disfranchisement — in a word, which "fight the Purishke-
viches" and which do not occupy an independent position in this fight.
Utopias, daydreaming, are engendered by this non-independence, this
weakness. A propensity for daydreaming is the lot of the weak.
The liberal bourgeoisie in general and the liberal-bourgeois intelli-
gentsia in particular cannot but aspire to liberty and a reign of law, because
556
TWO UTOPIAS 657
without these the domination of the bourgeoisie is not complete, is
not undivided, not guaranteed. But the bourgeoisie is more afraid of the
movement of the masses than of reaction. Hence, the striking, incredible
weakness of the liberals in politics, their absolute impotence. Hence the
endless equivocations and falsehoods, hypocrisy and cowardly evasion
in the entire policy of the liberals, who must play at democracy to get the
masses on their side but who at the same time are profoundly anti-
democratic, profoundly hostile to the movement of the masses, to their
initiative, their way of "storming Heaven," as Marx once expressed
himself with regard to one of the mass movements in Europe during the
last century.*
The Utopia of the liberals is a Utopia of impotence in the matter of the
political emanicipation of Russia, a Utopia of the self-interested money-
bags who want to share "peacefully" in the privileges of the Purishkeviches
and pass off this noble desire as the theory of the "peaceful" victory of
Russian democracy. Liberal utopianism means daydreaming about how
to beat the Purishkeviches without inflicting defeat upon them, how to
smash them without hurting them. Such a Utopia is clearly harmful not
only because it is a Utopia but also because it corrupts the democratic
consciousness of the masses. Masses that believe in this Utopia will never
attain liberty; such masses are not worthy of liberty; such masses fully
deserve to be made the laughing stock of the Purishkeviches.
The Utopia of the Narodniks and Trudoviks is a daydream of the
petty proprietors, who stand midway between the capitalists and the
wage workers, an illusion that wage slavery can be abolished without
a class struggle. When the question of economic emancipation will be
as proximate, as immediate, as urgent for Russia as the question of
political emancipation is today, the Utopia of the Narodniks will prove
no less harmful than the Utopia of the liberals.
But Russia is today still in the period of her bourgeois and not her
proletarian transformation; it is not the question of the economic emanci-
pation of the proletariat that has become supremely mature, but the ques-
tion of political emancipation, i.e. (at bottom) the question of complete
bourgeois liberty.
And in the latter question the Utopia of the Narodniks plays a pecu-
liar historical role. This Utopia, which is such with regard to the economic
consequence that ought (and would) follow upon a new division of the land,
is a concomitant and symptom of the great, mass democratic upsurgence
of the peasant millions, t'.e., the millions that constitute the majority of
the population in bourgeois-feudal, contemporary Russia. (In a purely
bourgeois Russia, as in purely bourgeois Europe, the peasantry will not
form the majority of the population.)
* Marx uses this expression in bis letter to Kugelmann, dated April 12, 1871,
in characterizing the Paris Communards. — Ed.
V.
The Utopia of the liberals corrupts the democratic consciousness of
the masses. The Utopia of the Narodniks, while corrupting their Socialist
consciousness, is a concomitant, a symptom, and to a certain extent even
an index of their democratic upsurgence.
The dialectics of history is such that the Narodniks and the Trudoviks
propose and advocate as an anti-capitalist remedy a thoroughgoing
capitalist measure of maximum consistency in the domain of the agrarian
question in Russia. An "equalitarian" new division of the land is Utopian,
but the completes t possible rupture, so necessary for a new division,
with all the old forms of landownership — both the landlord, the allotment
and the "government" forms of ownership — is the most necessary, eco-
nomically most progressive and, for a state like Russia, most urgent mea-
sure in the direction of bourgeois democracy. Let us recall here Engels'
admirable dictum:
"What formally may be economically incorrect, may all the
same be correct from the point of view of world history."
Engels laid down this profound proposition in reference to Utopian
Socialism: formally this Socialism was economically "incorrect." This
Socialism was "incorrect" when it declared that surplus value was an
injustice from the point of view of the laws of exchange. As against
this Socialism the theoreticians of bourgeois political economy were
formally right, from the point of view of economics, for the surplus
value is derived from the laws of exchange quite "naturally," quite
"justly."
But Utopian Socialism was right from the point of view of world his-
tory, as it was a symptom, an index, a herald of the class which, born of
capitalism, has by now, the beginning of the twentieth century, become a
mass force capable of putting an end to capitalism and irresistibly proceed-
ing in that direction.
Engels' profound proposition must be borne in mind when evaluat-
ing present-day Narodnik or Trudovik Utopias in Russia (and perhaps
not only in Russia but in a whole number of Asiatic countries having
bourgeois revolutions in the twentieth century).
Narodnik democracy, which formally is incorrect from the economic
point of view, is a verity from the historical point of view; this democracy,
while incorrect in its quality of a Socialist Utopia, is a verity of that pecu-
liar, historically conditioned democratic struggle of the peasant masses
which is an inseparable element of the bourgeois transformation and a
condition of its Complete victory.
The liberal Utopia disaccustoms the peasant masses to fighting. The
Narodnik Utopia expresses their eagerness to fight, but holds out the prom-
ise of a million blessings in case of victory while in actual fact this vic-
tory will yield them only a hundred. But is it not natural that the millions
who are out to fight, who for ages have lived in unheard-of ignorance,
TWO UTOPIAS 669
distress and poverty, dirt, abandonjnent and downtroddenness, should
magnify tenfold the fruits of a prospective victory?
The liberal Utopia is a veil to cover up the selfish desires of the new
exploiters to share in the privileges of the old exploiters. The Narodnik
Utopia is an expression of the aspiration of the toiling millions of the
petty bourgeoisie to make a clean sweep of the old, feudal exploiters, and
voices the false hope that the new, capitalist exploiters can be got rid
of "at one and the same time*."
Clearly the Marxists, who ate opposed to all Utopias, of whatever kind
they be, must defend the independence of the class which can fight feu-
dalism with supreme devotion for the very reason that it is not "caught"
even one hundredth as much in the vice of property interests as is the
bourgeoisie, which makes the latter an only half-hearted opponent and
oftentimes an ally of the feudals. The peasants are "caught" in the vice
of small commodity production; with a favourable conjuncture of histor-
ical circumstances they can achieve the most complete abolition of feu-
dalism, but they will always inevitably, and not accidentally, manifest a
certain degree of vacillation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat,
between liberalism and Marxism.
Clearlv the Marxists must carefully separate the shell of the Narodnik
Utopias from their sound and valuable kernel — the sincere, resolute,
militant democracy of the peasant masses.
In the old Marxian literature of the 'eighties one can find systematic
efforts to separate this valuable democratic kernel. Some day historians
will study these efforts systematically and trace their connection with
what in the first decade of the twentieth century was given the name of
"Bolshevism."
Written in October 1912.
First published in 1924
in No. 1 of the magazine Zhizn
BIG LANDLORD AND SMALL PEASANT
LANDOWNERSHIP IN RUSSIA
In connection with the recent anniversary of February 19, 1861, a
reminder of the present distribution of land in European Russia will not
be inappropriate.
The last official statistics of the distribution of land in European
Russia were published by the Ministry of the Interior and relate to 1905.
According to these statistics there were (in round numbers) about 30,000
big landlords, each owning over 500 dessiatins, and between them they
owned about 70,000,000 dessiatins.
An equal area of land was owned by some 10,000,000 poor peasant
households.
On an average, therefore, for each big landlord there are about 330 poor
peasant families, and while each peasant family owns 7 (seven) dessiatins,
each big landlord owns 2,300 (two thousand three hundred) dessiatins.
To make this graphically clear we print the above diagram.
560
LANDOWNERSHIP IN RUSSIA &61
Thc large white rectangle in the centre represents the estate of a big
landlord. The small squares surrounding it represent the small peasant
holdings:
In all, there are 324 squares, and the area of the large white rectangle
is equivalent to 320 squares.
Pravda No. 51 (255),
March 15 [2], 1913
36-686
BACKWARD EUROPE AND ADVANCED ASIA
The conjunction of these words seems paradoxical. Who does not know
that Europe is advanced and Asia backward? But the words taken for the
title for this article contain a bitter truth.
In civilized and advanced Europe, with its brilliantly developed
machine industry, its rich all-round culture and its constitution, a histor-
ical moment has supervened when the commanding bourgeoisie, out of
fear for the growth and increasing strength of the proletariat, is support-
ing everything backward, effete and mediaeval. The obsolescent bour-
geoisie is combining with all obsolete and obsolescent forces in order to
preserve tottering wage slavery.
Advanced Europe is commanded by a bourgeoisie which supports every-
thing backward. Europe is advanced today not thanks to, but in spite
of the bourgeoisie, for the proletariat alone is adding to the million-
strong army of champions of a better future, it alone is preserving and
propagating implacable enmity towards backwardness, savagery, privi-
lege, slavery and the humiliation of man by man.
In "advanced" Europe, the sole advanced class is the proletariat.
The living bourgeoisie, on the other hand, is prepared to go to any length
of savagery, brutality and crime in order to preserve capitalist slavery,
which is perishing.
And a more striking example of this decay of the entire European
bourgeoisie can scarcely be cited than the support it is lending to reac-
tion in Asia on behalf of the selfish aims of the financial dealers and
capitalist swindlers.
Everywhere in Asia a mighty democratic movement is growing,
spreading and gaining in strength. There the bourgeoisie is still siding
with the people against reaction. Hundreds of millions of people are awaken-
ing to life, light and liberty. What delight this world movement is arous-
ing in the hearts of all class-conscious workers, who know that the path
to collectivism lies through democracy! What sympathy all honest demo-
crats cherish for young Asia!
And "advanced" Europe? It is plundering China and helping the foes
of democracy, the foes of liberty in China!
Here is a simple but instructive little calculation. The new Chinese
loan has been concluded against Chinese democracy: "Europe" is for
562
BACKWARD EUROPE AND ADVANCED ASIA &6
Yuan Shih-kai, who is paving the way for a military dictatorship. Why
is it for him? Because of a profitable little deal. The loan has been con-
cluded for a sum of about 250,000,000 rubles, at the rate of 84 per 100.
That means that the bourgeois of "Europe" will pay the Chinese
210,000,000 rubles, but will take from the public 225,000,000 rubles.
There you have at one stroke a pure profit of fifteen million rubles in
a few weeks 1 "Pure" profit, indeed, is it not?
But what if the Chinese people do not recognize the loan? China, after
all, is a republic, and the majority in parliament are against the loan.
Oh, then "advanced" Europe will cry "civilization," "order," "cul-
ture" and "country"! Then it will set the guns in motion and crush the
republic of "backward" Asia, in alliance with the adventurer, traitor
and friend of reaction, Yuan Shih-kai!
All commanding Europe, all the European bourgeoisie is in alliance
with all the forces of reaction and mediaevalism in China.
But on the other hand, all young Asia, that is, the hundreds of millions
of toilers in Asia, have a reliable ally in the shape of the proletariat of all
the civilized countries. No force on earth can prevent its victory, which
will liberate both the peoples of Europe and the peoples of Asia.
Pravda No. 113 (317),
May 31 [18], 1913
86*
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION
Point 9 of the program of the Russian Marxists, which deals with the
right of nations to self-determination, has given rise lately (as we have
already pointed out in Prosveshcheniye) to a regular crusade of the oppor-
tunists. The Russian Liquidator Semkovsky in the St. Petersburg Liqui-
datorist newspaper, the Bundist Liebmann and the Ukrainian Social-
Nationalist Yurkevich in their respective journals, severely came down
upon this point and treated it with an air of supreme contempt. There is
no doubt that this "twelve languages invasion" of opportunism into our
Marxian program is closely connected with present-day nationalistic
vacillations in general. Hence, we think that a detailed analysis of this
question is opportune. We shall only observe that none of the above-
mentioned opportunists has adduced a single independent argument;
all of them merely repeat what was said by Rosa Luxemburg in her long
Polish article of 1908-09, "The National Question and Autonomy."
In our exposition we shall deal mainly with the "original" arguments
of this last-named author.
I. WHAT IS SELF-DETERMINATION OF NATIONS?
Naturally, this is the first question to arise when any attempt is made
to consider what is called self-determination in a Marxian way. What is
meant by that term? Should we seek for an answer in legal definitions
deduced from all sorts of "general concepts" of law? Or should we seek
an answer in the historical and economic study of the national movements?
It is not surprising that the Semkovskys, Liebmanns and Yurkeviches
did not even think of raising this question, but limited themselves mere-
ly to sneering about the "obscurity" of the Marxian program, apparently
not knowing in their simplicity that self-determination of nations is
dealt with not only in the Russian program of 1903, but also in the reso-
lution of the London International Congress of 1896 (with which I shall
deal in detail in the proper place). What is surprising is the fact that
Rosa Luxemburg, who declaims a great deal about the alleged abstract
and metaphysical nature of the point in question should herself succumb
564
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 665
to the sin of abstraction and metaphysics. It is Rosa Luxemburg her-
self who is continually straying into generalities about self-determination
(including the very amusing speculation on the question of how the
will of the nation is to be ascertained), without anywhere clearly and
precisely asking herself whether the issue is determined by juridical
definitions or by the experience of the national movements throughout
the world.
A precise formulation of this question, which a Marxist cannot avoid,
would at once have shaken nine-tenths of Rosa Luxemburg's arguments.
This is not the first time national movements have arisen in Russia,
nor are they peculiar to Russia alone. Throughout the world, the period
of the final victory of capitalism over feudalism has been linked up with
national movements. The economic basis of these movements is the fact
that in order to achieve complete victory for commodity production the
bourgeoisie must capture the home market, must have politically united
territories with a population speaking the same language, and all ob-
stacles to the development of this language and to its consolidation in
literature must be removed. Language is the most important means of
human intercourse. Unity of language and its unimpeded development
are most important conditions for genuinely free and extensive commer-
cial intercourse on a scale commensurate with modern capitalism, for a
free and broad grouping of the population in all its separate classes and
lastly, for the establishment of close connection between the market and
each and every proprietor, big or little, seller and buyer.
Therefore, the tendency of every national movement is towards the
formation of national states , under which these requirements of modern
capitalism are best satisfied. The profoundest economic factors drive
towards this goal, and therefore, for the whole of Western Europe, nay,
for the entire civilized world, the typical, normal state for the capitalist
period is the national state.
Consequently, if we want to learn the meaning of self-determination
of nations not by juggling with legal definitions, or "inventing" abstract
definitions, but by examining the historical and economic conditions of
the national movements, we shall inevitably reach the conclusion that
self-determination of nations means the political separation of these
nations from alien national bodies, the formation of an independent na-
tional state.
Later on, we shall sec still other reasons why it would be incorrect to
understand the right to self-determination to mean anything but the right
to separate state existence. At present, we must deal with Rosa Luxem-
burg's efforts to "dismiss" the unavoidable conclusion that the striving to
form a national state rests on deep economic foundations.
Rosa Luxemburg is quite familiar with Kautsky's pamphlet National-
ity and Internationality. (Supplement to Die Neue Zeity No. 1, 1907-08;
Russian translation in the magazine Nauchnaya Mysl [Scientific Thought],
566 V. I. LENIN
Riga, 1910.) She knows that Kautsky, after carefully analysing the ques-
tion of the national state in Chapter Four of that pamphlet, arrived at
the conclusion that Otto Bauer "underestimates the force of the urge to
create a national state" (p. 23). Rosa Luxemburg herself quotes the fol-
lowing words of Kautsky: "The national state is the form of state that
is most suitable for present-day conditions" (i.e., capitalist, civilized,
economically progressive conditions, as distinguished from mediaeval,
pre-capitalist, etc.), "it is the form in which it can best fulfil its func-
tions" (i.e., the function of securing the freest, widest and speediest
development of capitalism). We must add to this a still more precise con-
cluding remark by Kautsky: heterogeneous nation states (what are called
nationality states as distinguished from national states) are "always
states whose internal constitution has for some reason or other remained
abnormal or underdeveloped" (backward). Needless to say, Kautsky speaks
of abnormality exclusively in the sense of lack of conformity with what
is best adapted to the requirements of developing capitalism.
The question now is, how did Rosa Luxemburg treat Kautsky 's histor-
ical-economic conclusions on this point? Are they right or wrong? Is
Kautsky right in his historical-economic theory, or is Bauer, whose theory
has a psychological basis? What is the connection between Bauer's un-
doubted "national opportunism," his defence of cultural-national autono-
my, his nationalistic infatuation ("here and there an emphasis on the na-
tional aspect, "as Kautsky put it), his "enormous exaggeration of the na-
tional aspect and complete oblivion to the international aspect" (Kaut-
sky)— and his underestimation of the urge to create a national state?
Rosa Luxemburg did not even raise this question. She failed to notice
this connection. She did not weigh the totality of Bauer's theoretical
views. She did not even draw a contrast between the historical-economic
and the psychological theory of the national question. She confined her-
self to the following remarks in criticism of Kautsky:
"This 'best' national state is only an abstraction, which can
easily be developed and defended theoretically, but which does
not correspond to reality." (Przeglad Socjal-Demokratyczny [Social-
Democratic Review], 1908, No. 6, p. 499.)
And in corroboration of this bold statement there follow arguments
to the effect that the "right to self-determination" of small nations is
rendered illusory by the development of the great capitalist powers and
by imperialism.
"Can one seriously speak," exclaims Rosa Luxemburg, "about
the 'self-determination* of the formally independent Montenegrins,
Bulgarians, Rumanians, Serbs, Greeks, partly even the Swiss,
whose independence is itself a result of the political struggle and
the diplomatic game of the 'Concert of Europe'"?! (P» 500.)
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF DETERMINATION 567
The state that best suits the conditions is "not a national state, as
Kautsky believes, but a predatory state." Several score of figures are
quoted relating to the size of British, French and other colonies.
Reading such arguments one cannot help marvelling how the author
contrived not to understand what's what\ To teach Kautsky with
a serious mien that small states are economically dependent on big ones,
that a struggle is going on between the bourgeois states for the predatory
suppression of other nations, that imperialism and colonies exist —
savours of ridiculously childish attempts to be clever, for all this is alto-
gether irrelevant to the subject. Not only small states, but even Russia,
for example, is economically entirely dependent on the power of the
imperialist finance capital of the "rich" bourgeois countries. Not only
the miniature Balkan states, but even America in the nineteenth century
was economically a colony of Europe, as Marx pointed out in Capital.
Kautsky, and every Marxist, is well aware of this, of course, but it has
nothing whatever to do with the question of national movements and
the national state.
For the question of the political self-determination of nations in hour-
geois society, and of their independence as states, Rosa Luxemburg has
substituted the question of their economic independence. This is as intel-
ligent as if someone, in discussing the demand in the program for the
supremacy of parliament, i.e., the assembly of people's representatives,
in a bourgeois state, were to expound the perfectly correct conviction
that big capital is supreme under any regime in a bourgeois country.
There is no doubt that the greater part of Asia, the most populous
part of the world, consists either of colonies of the "Great Powers" or
of states which are extremely dependent and oppressed as nations. But
does this commonly known circumstance in any way shake the undoubted
fact that in Asia itself the conditions for the most complete development
of commodity production, for the freest, widest and speediest growth
of capitalism, have been created only in Japan, t.e., only in an inde-
pendent national state? This state is a bourgeois state, therefore, it,
itself, has begun to oppress other nations and to enslave colonies. We
cannot say whether Asia will have time before the downfall of capitalism
to become crystallized into a system of independent national states,
like Europe; but it remains an undisputed fact that capitalism, having
awakened Asia, has called forth national movements everywhere in that
continent, too; that the tendency of these movements is towards the
creation of national states there; that the best conditions for the devel-
opment of capitalism are ensured precisely by such states. The example
of Asia speaks in favour cf Kautsky and against Rosa Luxemburg.
The example of the Balkan states also speaks against her, for everyone
can see now that the best conditions for the development of capitalism
in the Balkans are created precisely in proportion to the creation of
independent national states in that peninsula.
568 V. L LENIN
Therefore, Rosa Luxemburg notwithstanding, the example of the
whole of progressive, civilized mankind, the example of the Balkans
and the example of Asia prove that Kautsky's proposition is absolutely
correct: the national state is the rule and the "norm" of capitalism; the
heterogeneous nation state represents backwardness, or is an exception.
From the standpoint of national relations, the best conditions for the
development of capitalism are undoubtedly provided by the national
state. This does not mean, of course, that such a state, while retaining
bourgeois relations, could avert the exploitation and oppression of nations,
It only means that Marxists cannot ignore the powerful economic factors
that give rise to the aspiration to create national states. It means that
"self-determination of nations" in the program of the Marxists cannot,
from a historical-economic point of view, have any other meaning than
political self-determination, political independence, the formation of
a national state.
On what conditions the bourgeois-democratic demand for a "national
state" is to be supported from a Marxian, i.e., class proletarian, point
of view will be dealt with in detail later on. At present we confine our-
selves to the definition of the concept "self-determination" and must
only note that Rosa Luxemburg knows what this concept means ("national
state"), whereas her opportunist partisans, the Liebmanns, the Semkov-
skys, the Yurkeviches do not even know thatl
II. THE CONCRETE HISTORICAL PRESENTATION
OF THE QUESTION
The categorical demand of Marxian theory in examining any social
question is that the question be formulated within definite historical
limits, and if it refers to a particular country (e.g., the national program
for a given country), that the specific features that distinguish that
country from others within the same historical epoch be taken into account.
What does this categorical demand of Marxism imply as regards the
question we are discussing?
First of all, it implies that a strict distinction must be drawn between
two periods of capitalism, which differ radically from each other as far
as the national movement is concerned. On the one hand, the period of
the downfall of feudalism and absolutism, the period of the formation
of bourgeois-democratic society and states, when the national movements
for the first time become mass movements and in one way or another
draw all classes of the population into politics by means of the press,
participation in representative institutions, etc. On the other hand,
we have the period of definitely crystallized capitalist states with a long-
established constitutional regime, with a strongly developed antagonism
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 569
between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie — the period that may be
called the eve of the downfall of capitalism.
The typical features of the first period are the awakening of national
movements and the drawing of the peasants, the most numerous and the
most "sluggish" section of the population, into these movements, in
connection with the struggle for political liberty in general and for na-
tional rights in particular. The typical features of the second period are
the absence of mass bourgeois-democratic movements; the fact that
developed capitalism, while bringing the nations that have already been
fully drawn into commercial intercourse closer together and causing
them to intermingle to an increasing degree, pushes into the forefront
the antagonism between internationally united capital and the interna-
tional labour movement.
Of course, the two periods cannot be separated into watertight compart,
ments; they are connected by numerous transitional links, while the
various countries differ from each other in the rapidity of their national
development, in national composition and distribution of their popu-
lation, and so forth. The Marxists of a given country cannot proceed
to draw up their national program without taking into account all these
general historical and concrete state conditions.
And it is just here that we come up against the weakest point in the
arguments of Rosa Luxemburg. With extraordinary zeal she embellishes
her article with a collection of "strong" words against point 9 of our
program, declaring it to be "sweeping," "a platitude," "a metaphysical
phrase," and so on ad infinitum. It would be natural to expect that an
author who so magnificently condemns metaphysics (in the Marxian
sense, i . e., anti-dialectics) and empty abstractions would set us an example
of how to make a concrete historical analysis of the question. We are
discussing the national program of the Marxists of a definite country —
Russia, in a definite period — the beginning of the twentieth century.
But does Rosa Luxemburg raise the question as to what historical period
Russia is passing through, as to what are the concrete specific features
of the national question and the national movements of that particular
country in that particular period?
No! She says absolutely nothing about it! In her work you will not
find even the hint of an analysis of how the national question stands
in Russia in the present historical period, or of the specific features
of Russia in this particular respect 1
We are told that the national question stands differently in the Bal-
kans than in Ireland; that Marx appraised the Polish and Czech national
movements in the concrete conditions of 1848 in this way (a page
of excerpts from Marx); that Engels appraised the struggle of the
forest cantons of Switzerland against Austria and the battle of Mor-
garten which took place in 1315 in that way (a page of quotations
from Engels with Kautsky's commentaries on them); that Lassalle
570 V. I. LENIN
regarded the peasant war in Germany of the sixteenth century as
reactionary, etc.
It cannot be said that these remarks and quotations are remarkable
for their novelty, but, at all events, it is interesting for the reader to
recall again and again precisely how Marx, Engels and Lassalle ap-
proached the analysis of concrete historical questions in individual
countries. And a perusal of these instructive quotations from Marx and
Engels reveals most strikingly the ridiculous position Rosa Luxemburg
has placed herself in. Eloquently and angrily she preaches the need for a
concrete historical analysis of the national question in various countries
at various periods; but she makes not the slightest attempt to determine
through what historical stage in the development of capitalism Russia
is passing at the beginning of the twentieth century or the specific fea-
tures of the national question in this country. Rosa Luxemburg gives
examples of how others have treated the question in a Marxian fashion,
as if deliberately stressing how often good intentions pave the road
to hell, how often good counsels cover up unwillingness or inability to
follow these counsels in practice.
Here is one of her edifying comparisons. In protesting against the
demand for the independence of Poland, Rosa Luxemburg refers to her
work of 1893, in which she demonstrated the rapid "industrial develop-
ment of Poland" and the sale of the latter 's manufactured goods in Rus-
sia. Needless to say, no conclusion whatever can be drawn from this
on the question of the right to self-determination; it only proves the
disappearance of the old, squire-ridden Poland, etc. But Rosa Lux-
emburg always imperceptibly passes on to the conclusion that among
the factors that unite Russia and Poland, the purely economic factors
of modern capitalist relations now predominate.
Then our Rosa passes on to the question of autonomy, and though
her article is entitled "The National Question and Autonomy," in general,
she begins to argue that the Kingdom of Poland has an exclusive right
to autonomy (cf. Prosveshcheniye, 1913, No. 12). In order to support the
right of Poland to autonomy, Rosa Luxemburg evidently judges the
state system of Russia by its economic and political and sociological
characteristics and everyday life — a totality of traits, which produce
the concept "Asiatic despotism." (Przeglad, No. 12, p. 137.)
It is common knowledge that a state system of that type possesses
great stability in those cases where completely patriarchal pre-capitalist
traits are predominant in the economic system and where commodity
production and class differentiation are hardly developed. If, however,
in a country where the state system bears a very distinct pre-capitalist
character, there is a nationally delimited region where capitalism is
rapidly developing, then the more rapidly that capitalism develops,
the greater will be the antagonism between it and the pre-capitalist
state system, and the more probably will the more progressive region
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION* 571
separate from the whole — with which it is connected not by "modern
capitalistic," but by "Asiatic-despotic" ties.
Thus, Rosa Luxemburg's reasoning is faulty even on the question
of the social structure of the government in Russia in relation to bourgeois
Poland; and she does not even raise the question of the concrete, historical,
specific features of the national movements in Russia.
This question we must deal with.
III. THE CONCRETE SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE NATIONAL
QUESTION IN RUSSIA AND RUSSIA'S BOURGEOIS-DEMOCRATIC
REFORMATION
"In spite of the elasticity cf the principle of 'the right of nations
to self-determination,' which is a mere platitude, being, obviously,
equally applicable not only to the nations inhabiting Russia,
but also to the nations inhabiting Germany and Austria, Switzer-
land and Sweden, America and Australia, we do not find it in the
programs of any of the present-day Socialist parties. . . ." (Przeglad,
No. 6, p. 483.)
This is what Rosa Luxemburg writes at the very beginning of her
crusade against point 9 cf the Marxists' program. In trying to foist on
us the conception of this point in the program as a "mere platitude"
Rosa Luxemburg herself falls victim to this error, alleging with amusing
audacity that this point is "obviously, equally applicable" to Russia,
Germany, etc.
Obviously, we reply, Rosa Luxemburg decided to make her article
a collection of errors in logic suitable for schoolboy exercises. For Rosa
Luxemburg's tirade is absolute nonsense and a mockery of the histor-
ically concrete presentation of the question.
Interpreting the Marxian program in a Marxian and not in a childish
way, it is very easy to surmise that it refers to bourgeois-democratic
national movements. If that is the case, and it undoubtedly is the case,
it is "obvious" that this program "sweepingly," as a "platitude," etc.,
refers to all instances of bourgeois -democratic national movements.
And had Rosa Luxemburg given the slightest thought to this, she would
have come to the no less obvious conclusion that our program refers only
to cases where such a movement is actually in existence.
Had she pondered over these obvious considerations, Rosa Luxemburg
would have easily perceived what nonsense she was uttering. In accusing
us of uttering a "platitude" she uses against us the argument that no
mention is made of the right to self-determination in the programs of
those countries where there are no bourgeois -democratic national move-
ments! A remarkably clever argument!
572 , V. I. LENIN
A comparison of the political and economic development of various
countries as well as of the Marxian programs is of enormous importance
from the standpoint of Marxism, for there can be no doubt that all modern
states are of the same capitalist nature and are subject to the same law
of development. But such a comparison must be drawn in a sensible way.
The elementary condition required for this is the elucidation of the ques-
tion of whether the historical periods of the development of the countries
compared are at all comparable. For instance, only absolute ignoramuses
(such as Prince E.Trubetskoy in Russkaya Mysl [Russian Thought]) are
capable of "comparing" the agrarian program of the Russian Marxist
with those of Western Europe, for our program answers the question
regarding a bourgeois-democratic agrarian reformation, whereas in the
Western countries no such question exists.
The same applies to the national question. In most Western countries
this question was settled long ago. It is ridiculous to seek in the programs
of Western Europe for an answer to non-existent questions. Rosa Luxem-
burg has lost sight of the most important thing here, viz., the difference
between countries where the bourgeois-democratic reformation has long
been completed and those where it has not yet been completed.
This difference is the crux of the matter. Her complete disregard of
this difference transforms Rosa Luxemburg's exceedingly long article
into a collection of empty, meaningless platitudes.
In Western, continental Europe, the period of the bourgeois- democrat,
ic revolutions embraces a fairly definite portion of time, approximately
from 1789 to 1871. This was precisely the period of national movements
and the creation of national states. When this period drew to a close West-
ern Europe had been transformed into a settled system of bourgeois
states, which, as a general rule, were national uniform states. Therefore,
to seek the right of self-determination in the programs of present-day
West-European Socialists is to betray one's ignorance of the ABC of
Marxism.
In Eastern Europe and in Asia the period of bourgeois-democratic
revolutions only began in 1905. The revolutions in Russia, Persia, Turkey
and China, the wars in the Balkans, such is the chain of world events of
our period in our "Orient." And only the blind can fail to see in this chain
of events the awakening of a whole series of bourgeois-democratic national
movements, strivings to create nationally independent and nationally
uniform states. It is precisely and solely because Russia and the neighbour-
ing countries are passing through this period that we require an item in
our program on the right of nations to self-determination.
But let us continue the quotation from Rosa Luxemburg's article
a little further. She writes:
"In particular, the program of a party which is operating in a
state with an extremely mixed national composition and for which
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMltfATION 673
the national question is a matter of first-rate importance — the pro-
gram of the Austrian Social-Democratic Party— does not contain
the principle of the right of nations to self-determination." (Ibid.)
Thus, an attempt is made to convince the reader by the example of
Austria "in particular." Let us see whether this example is a reasonable
one by examining this definite historical case.
In the first place, we raise the fundamental question of the comple-
tion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. In Austria this revolution
began in 1848, and was over in 1867. Since then, for nearly half a century,
there has prevailed what on the whole is an established bourgeois con-
stitution on the basis of which a legal workers 'party is legally function-
ing.
Therefore, in the inherent conditions of the development of Austria
(i.e., from the standpoint of the development of capitalism in Austria
in general, and among its separate nations in particular), there are no
factors that produce leaps, 'one of the concomitants of which may be the
formation of nationally independent states. In assuming by her com-
parison that Russia is in an analogous position in this respect, Rosa Luxem-
burg not only makes a radically wrong, anti-historical assumption, but she
involuntarily slips into Liquidatorism.
Secondly, the entirely different relations between the nationalities
in Austria and in Russia are particularly important for the question we
are concerned with. Not only was Austria for a long time a state in which
the Germans were predominant, but the Austrian Germans laid claim to
hegemony in the German nation as a whole. This "claim," as Rosa Luxem-
burg (who is seemingly so averse to commonplaces, platitudes, abstrac-
tions . . .) will perhaps be kind enough to remember, was defeated in the
war of 1866. The German nation predominating in Austria found itself
outside the pale of the independent German state which finally took shape
in 1871. On the other hand, the attempt of the Hungarians to create an
independent national state collapsed as far back as 1849, under the bfows
of the Russian army of serfs.
A very peculiar situation was thus created: a striving on the part of
the Hungarians and then of the Czechs, not for separation from Austria,
but, on the contrary, for the preservation of Austria's integrity, precise-
ly in order to preserve national independence, which might have been
completely crushed by more rapacious and powerful neighbours! Owing
to this peculiar situation, Austria assumed the form of a double centred
(dual) state, and is now being transformed into a three centred (triune)
state (Germans, Hungarians, Slavs).
Is there anything like this in Russia? Is there in our country a striv-
ing of "alien races" for unity with the Great Russians in order to escape
a worse national oppression?
674 V. I. LENIN
It suffices to put this question to see that the comparison between Rus-
sia and Austria in the question of self-determination of nations is sense-
less, platitudinous and ignorant.
The peculiar conditions in Russia as regards the national question
are just the reverse of those we see in Austria. Russia is a state with a
single national centre — Great Russia. The Great Russians occupy a vast,
uninterrupted stretch of territory, and number about 70,000,000. The
specific features of this national state are, firstly, that "alien races"
(which, on the whole, form the majority of the entire population — 57 per
cent) inhabit the border regions. Secondly, the oppression of these alien
races is much worse than in the neighbouring states (and not in the Euro-
pean states alone). Thirdly, in a number of cases the oppressed nation-
alities inhabiting the border regions have compatriots across the border
who enjoy greater national independence (suffice it to mention the Finns,
the Swedes, the Poles, the Ukrainians and the Rumanians along the west-
ern and southern frontiers of the state). Fourthly, the development of
capitalism and the general level of culture are often higher in the border
regions inhabited by "alien races" than in the centre. Lastly, it is pre-
cisely in the neighbouring Asiatic states that we observe incipient bour-
geois revolutions and national movements, which partly affect the kindred
nationalities within the borders of Russia.
Thus, it is precisely the concrete, historical specific features of the
national question in Russia that make the recognition of the right of
nations to self-determination in the present period a matter of special
urgency in our country.
Incidentally, even from the purely factual aspect, Rosa Luxemburg's
assertion that the program of the Austrian Social -Democrats does not
contain the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination is
incorrect. We need only open the minutes of the Brunn Congress, which
adopted the national program, to find the statements by the Ruthenian
Social-Democrat Hankevicz on behalf of the entire Ukrainian (Ruthe-
nian) delegation (p. 85 of the minutes), and by the Polish Social-Demo-
crat Reger on behalf of the entire Polish delegation (p. 108), to the effect
that one of the aims of the Austrian Social-Democrats of both the above-
mentioned nations is to secure national unity, the freedom and independ-
ence of their nations. Hence, Austrian Social-Democracy while not in-
cluding the right of nations to self-determination directly in its program,
nevertheless, allows the demand for national independence to be
advanced by sections of the Party. In reality this means, of course, the
recognition of the right of nations to self-determination! Thus, Rosa
Luxemburg's reference to Austria speaks against Rosa Luxemburg in all
respects.
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION' 676
IV. "PRACTICALNESS" IN THE NATIONAL QUESTION
The opportunists were particularly keen in taking up Rosa Luxem-
burg's argument that there is nothing "practical" in point 9 of our pro-
gram. Rosa Luxemburg is so delighted with this argument that in some
parts of her article this "slogan" is repeated eight times on a single page.
She writes:
Point 9 "gives no practical lead on the day-to-day policy of the pro-
letariat, no practical solution of national problems."
Let us examine this argument, which elsewhere is also formulated in
a way that implies that point 9 is either meaningless, or else pledges
us to support all national aspirations.
What does the demand for "practicalness" in the national question
imply?
Either support for all national aspirations; or the answer "yes" or
"no" to the question of secession in the case of every nation; or that,
national demands are "practicable" in general.
Let us consider all these three possible meanings of the demand for
"practicalness."
The bourgeoisie, which naturally exercises hegemony (leadership)
in the beginning of every national movement, considers it practical to sup-
port all national aspirations. But the policy of the proletariat in the
national question (as in other questions) supports the bourgeoisie only
in a definite direction; it never coincides with the policy of the bourgeoi-
sie. The working class supports the bourgeoisie only in order to secure
national peace (which the bourgeoisie cannot bring about completely,
which can be achieved only with complete democracy) in order to secure
equal rights and to create better conditions for the class struggle. There-
fore, against the practicalness of the bourgeoisie the proletarians advance
their principles in the national question; they always give the bourgeoisie
only conditional support. In national affairs the bourgeoisie always strives
for privileges or exceptional advantages for its own nation; and this
is called being "practical." The proletariat is opposed to all privileges,
to all exceptionalism. Those who demand that it should be "practical"
are trailing in the wake of the bourgeoisie, are falling into opportunism.
The demand for an answer "yes" or "no" to the question of secession
in the case of every nation seems to be a very "practical" one. In reality
it is absurd; it is metaphysical in theory, and in practice it means subor-
dinating the proletariat to the policy of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie
always places its national demands in the forefront. It advances them cate-
gorically. For the proletariat, however, these demands are subordinate
to the interests of the class struggle. Theoretically, it is impossible to
vouch beforehand whether the secession of a given nation from, or its
equality with another nation will complete the bourgeois-democratic
revolution; in either case, the important thing for the proletariat is to en-
676 V. I. LENIN
sure the development of its class. For the bourgeoisie it is important to
hamper this development and to put die aims of "its" nation before the
aims of the proletariat. That is why the proletariat confines itself, so to
say, to the negative demand for the recognition of the right to self-deter-
mination, without guaranteeing anything to any nation, without under-
taking to give anything at the expense of another nation.
This may not be "practical," but in reality it is the best guarantee for
the achievement of the most democratic of all possible solutions. The
proletariat needs only these guarantees, whereas the bourgeoisie of every
nation requires guarantees for its own interests, irrespective of the posi-
tion of (or the possible disadvantages to) other nations.
The bourgeoisie is most interested in the "practicability" of the given
demand — hence the perennial policy of coming to terms with the bour-
geoisie of other nations to the detriment of the proletariat. For the prole-
tariat, however, the important thing is to strengthen its class against the
bourgeoisie and to educate the masses in the spirit of consistent democracy
and Socialism.
The opportunists may think this is not "practical," but it is the only
teal guarantee of a maximum of national equality and peace, in spite of
the feudal landlords and the nationalist bourgeoisie.
The whole task of the proletarians in the national question is "imprac-
tical" from the standpoint of the nationalist bourgeoisie of every na-
tion, because, being opposed to all nationalism, the proletarians demand
"abstract" equality, they demand that on principle, there shall be no priv-
ileges, however slight. Failing to grasp this, Rosa Luxemburg, by her
unwise eulogy of practicalness, opened the gate wide for the opportunists,
and especially for opportunist concessions to Great-Russian nationalism.
Why Great- Russian? Because the Great Russians in Russia are an op-
pressing nation, and opportunism on the national question will naturally
be differently expressed among the oppressed nations than among the
oppressing nations.
The bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations will call upon the proletariat
to support its aspirations unconditionally on the plea that its demands
are "practical." It would be more practical to say a plain "yes" in fa-
vour of the secession of a particular nation than in favour of all nations
having the right to secede.
The proletariat is opposed to such practicalness. While recognizing
equality and an equal right to a national state, it attaches supreme value
to the alliance of the proletarians of all nations, and evaluates every
national demand, every national separation, from the angle of the class
struggle of the workers. This call for practicalness is merely a call for
the uncritical acceptance of bourgeois aspirations.
We are told: by supporting the right to secession you are supporting
the bourgeois nationalism of the oppressed nations. This is what Rosa
Luxemburg says, and it is echoed by Semkovsky, the opportunist, who;
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION &77
by the way, is the only representative of Liquidator 1st ideas on this
question in the Liquidatorist newspaper!
Our reply to this is: No, a "practical" solution of this question is impor-
tant for the bourgeoisie. The important thing for the workers is to distin-
guish the principles of two trends. // the bourgeoisie of the oppressed na-
tion fights against the oppressing one, we are always, in every case, and
more resolutely than anyone else, in favour; for we are the staunchest and
the most consistent enemies of oppression. But if the bourgeoisie of the
oppressed nation stands for its own bourgeois nationalism we are opposed.
We fight against the privileges and violence of the oppressing nation,
but we do not condone the strivings for privileges on the part of the op-
pressed nation.
If we do not raise and advocate the slogan of the right to secession we
shall play into the hands, not only of the bourgeoisie, but also of the feu-
dal landlords and the despotism of the oppressing nation. Kautsky long
ago advanced this argument against Rosa Luxemburg, and the argument
is indisputable. When Rosa Luxemburg, in her anxiety not to "assist"
the nationalistic bourgeoisie of Poland, rejects the right to secession in
the program of the Russian Marxists, she is in fact assisting the Great-
Russian Black-Hundreds. She is in fact assisting opportunist resignation
to the privileges (and worse than privileges) of the Great Russians.
Carried away by the struggle against nationalism in Poland, Rosa
Luxemburg has forgotten the nationalism of the Great Russians, although
this nationalism is the most formidable at the present time, it is the nation-
alism that is less bourgeois and more feudal, and it is the principal
obstacle to democracy and to the proletarian struggle. The bourgeois
nationalism of every oppressed nation has a general democratic content
which is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we support
unconditionally, while strictly distinguishing it from the tendency towards
national exceptionalism, while fighting against the tendency of the Polish
bourgeois to oppress the Jews, etc., etc.
This is "impractical" from the standpoint of a bourgeois and a philis-
tine; but it is the only policy in the national question that is practical,
that is based on principles and that really furthers democracy, liberty
and proletarian unity.
The recognition of the right to secession for all; the appraisal of each
concrete question of secession from the point of view of removing all in-
equality, all privileges, all exceptionalism.
Let us examine the position of an oppressing nation. Can a nation be
free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot. The interests of the freedom
of the Great-Russian population* demand a struggle against such oppres-
* This word appears un-Marxian to a certain L.V1. in Paris. This L.Vl.
is amusingly "euperklug" (over- clever). This "over-clever" L.Vl. apparently
proposes to write an essay on the deletion from our minimum program (having
in mind the class strugglel) of the words "population," "people," etc.
37—685
578
V. I. LENIN
sion. The long, age-long history of the suppression of the movements of
the oppressed nations, the systematic propaganda in favour of such sup-
pression on the part of the "upper" classes, have created enormous obsta-
cles to the cause of freedom of the Great-Russian people itself, in the form
of prejudices, etc.
The Great- Russian Black- Hundreds deliberately foster and fan these
prejudices. The Great-Russian bourgeoisie tolerates them or panders to
them. The Great- Russian proletariat cannot achieve its own aims, cannot
clear the road to freedom for itself unless it systematically combats these
prejudices.
In Russia, the creation of an independent national state so far remains
the privilege of one nation, the Great-Russian nation. We, the Great-
Russian proletarians, defend no privileges, and we do not defend this
privilege. In our fight we take the given state as our basis; we unite the
workers of all nations in the given state; we cannot vouch for any partic-
ular path of national development, we are marching to our class goal by
all possible paths.
But we cannot advance to that goal unless we combat all nationalism,
unless we fight for the equality of the workers of all nations. Whether the
Ukraine, for example, is destined to form an independent state is a matter
that will be determined by a thousand factors, which cannot be foreseen.
Without attempting idle "guesses," we firmly uphold what is beyond
doubt: the right of the Ukraine to form such a state. We respect this
right; we do not uphold the privileges of the Great Russians over the
Ukrainians; we teach the masses to recognize that right, and to reject the
state privileges of any nation.
In the leaps which all nations take in the period of bourgeois revolu-
tions, clashes and struggle over the right to a national state are possible
and probable. We proletarians declare in advance that we are opposed
to Great-Russian privileges, and this is what guides our entire propa-
ganda and agitation.
In her quest for "practicalness" Rosa Luxemburg has overlooked the
principal practical task both of the Great-Russian proletariat and of the
proletariat of other nationalities: the task of daily agitation and propa-
ganda against all state and national privileges and for the right, the equal
right of all nations to their national state. This task is (at present) our
principal task in the national question, for only in this way can we defend
the interests of democracy and the alliance of all proletarians of all na-
tions on an equal footing.
This propaganda may be "unpractical" from the point of view of the
Great- Russian oppressors as well as from the point of view of the bour-
geoisie of the oppressed nations (both demand a definite "yes" or "no,"
and accuse the Social-Democrats of being "vague"). In reality it is this
propaganda, and only this propaganda, that ensures the really democrat-
ic, the really Socialist education of the masses. Only such propaganda
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 579
ensures the greatest chances of national peace in Russia, should she remain
a heterogeneous nation state, and the most peaceful (and for the prole-
tarian class struggle, harmless) division into separate national states,
should the question of such a division arise.
To explain this, the only proletarian policy in the national question,
more concretely we shall examine the attitude of Great- Russian Liber-
alism towards "self-determination of nations," and the example of the
secession of Norway from Sweden.
V. THE LIBERAL BOURGEOISIE AND THE SOCIALIST
OPPORTUNISTS ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION
We have seen that one of Rosa Luxemburg's "trump cards" in her
crusade against the program of the Russian Marxists is the following
argument: The recognition of the right to self-determination is tanta-
mount to supporting the bourgeois nationalism of the oppressed nations.
On the other hand, she says, if by this right we mean nothing more than
combating the use of violence against other nations, there is no need to
have a special point in the program about it, for Social-Democrats are, in
general, opposed to all national oppression and all national inequality.
The first argument, as Kautsky irrefutably proved nearly twenty years
ago, is a case of blaming other people for one's own nationalism; for in
fearing the nationalism of the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations, Rosa
Luxemburg is actually playing into the hands of the Black-Hundred
nationalism of the Great Russians 1 Her second argument is virtually a
timid evasion of the question: Does the recognition of national equality
include the recognition of the right to secession or not? If it does, then
Rosa Luxemburg admits that, in principle, point 9 of our program is
correct. If it does not, then she does not believe in national equality.
Twists and evasions will not help matters here in the least 1
The best way to test the above and all analogous arguments, however,
is to study the attitude of the various classes of society towards this ques-
tion. A Marxist must make this test. He must proceed from the objective;
he must examine the relations of the classes on this point. Failing to do
this, Rosa Luxemburg is guilty of those very sins of metaphysics, abstrac-
tions, platitudes, sweeping statements, etc., of which she vainly accuses
her opponents.
We are discussing the program of the Marxists in Russia, i.e., of the
Marxists of all the nationalities in Russia. Should we not examine the
position of the ruling classes of Russia?
The position of the "bureaucracy"* (we beg to be excused for this
inexact term) and of the feudal landlords of the type of our United Nobil-
* For reasons of the censorship Lenin here uses the term "bureaucracy" instead
of "tiarism."— Ed.
87*
680 V* I. LENIN
ity is well known. They categorically reject both equality of national-
ities and the right to self-determination. They adhere to the old motto of
the days of serfdom: autocracy, orthodoxy, the nation — the last term
applying only to the Great-Russian nation. Even the Ukrainians have
been declared to be "aliens," and even their language is being suppressed.
Let us glance at the Russian bourgeoisie, which was "called" to take
pajrt — a very modest part, it is true, but nevertheless some part — in the
government, under the "June Third" legislative and administrative sys-
tem. There is no need to dilate on the fact that the Octobrists are really
following the Rights in this question. Unfortunately, some Marxists pay
much less attention to the position of the Great-Russian liberal bour-
geoisie, the Progressives and the Cadets, And yet he who fails to study
and ponder over this position will inevitably flounder in abstractions and
unsupported statements in discussing the question of the right of nations
to self-determination.
Skilled though it is in the art of diplomatically evading direct answers
to "unpleasant" questions, Rechy the principal organ of the Constitu-
tional-Democratic Party, was compelled, in its controversy with the Pravda
last year, to make certain valuable admissions. The trouble started over
the All- Ukraine Students' Congress that was held in Lvov in the summer
of 1913. Mr. Mogilyansky, the sworn "Ukrainian expert" or Ukrainian
correspondent of Seek, wrote an article in which he heaped the choicest
invectives ("delirium," "adventurism," etc.) on the idea that the Ukraine
should secede, which Dontsov, a Social-Nationalist, had advocated and
the above-mentioned congress had approved.
Rabochaya Pravda, in no way identifying itself with Mr. Dontsov and
plainly declaring that he was a Social-Nationalist and that many Ukrain-
ian Marxists did not agree with him, stated that the tone of Rech, or,
rather, the way it formulated the question in principle, was improper and
reprehensible for a Great-Russian democrat, or for any one desiring to
pass as a democrat. Let Rech repudiate the Dontsovs if it likes, but from
the standpoint of principle9 a Great-Russian organ of democracy, as it
claims to be, cannot be oblivious to freedom to secede, the right to secede.
A few months later Mr. Mogilyansky, having learned from the Ukrain-
ian newspaper Shlyakhi, published in Lvov, of Mr. Dontsov 's reply —
in the course of which, incidentally, Dontsov had stated that "the chau-
vinist attacks in Reck have been properly branded [stigmatized?] only
in the Russian Social-Democratic press," wrote an "explanation" in Rech,
No. 331. This "explanation" consisted of the thrice repeated statement
that "criticism of Mr. Dontsov 's recipes" "does not mean rejection of the
right of nations to self-determination."
"It must be said," wrote Mr. Mogilyansky, "that even 'the right of
nations to self-determination* is not a fetish [hear I hear!!] that must not
be criticized: morbid conditions in the life of nations may give rise to
morbid tendencies in national self-determination, and the fact that these
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 681
are brought to light does not mean that the right of nations to self-detect
mination is rejected."
As you see, this Liberal's talk about a "fetish" is quite in keeping
with Rosa Luxemburg's. It was obvious that Mr, Mogilyansky wanted
to avoid giving a direct reply to the question: does he recognise the right
to political self-determination, i.e., to secession, or not?
Proletarskaya Pravda (No. 4, of December 11, 1913) put this question
point-blank to Mr. Mogilyansky and to the Constitutional-Democratic
Parly.
Rechy then (No. 340), published an unsigned, i.e., an official editorial
statement replying to this question. This reply can be reduced to the fol-
lowing three points:
1) Point 11 of the program of the Constitutional-Democratic Party
speaks very definitely and clearly of "the right of nations to free cultural
self-determination."
2) According to Rech9 Proletarskaya Pravda "hopelessly confuses"
self-determination with separatism, with the secession of particular na-
tions.
3) "Actually y the Constitutional- Democrats have never pledged them-
selves to advocate the right of 'nations to secede9 from the Russian state."
(See article, "National-Liberalism and the Right of Nations to Self-
Determination," in the Proletarskaya Pravday No. 12, December 20,
1913.)
Let us first consider the second point of the statement in Rech. How
vividly it shows the Semkovskys, the Liebmanns, the Yurkeviches and
other opportunists that the hue and cry they have raised about the al-
leged "vagueness," or "indefiniteness," of the term "self-determination"
is in fact, i.e., from the standpoint of objective class relationships and
the class struggle in Russia, a mere repetition of the utterances of the
Liberal monarchist bourgeoisie!
Proletarskaya Pravda then put the following three questions to the
enlightened "Constitutional-Democratic" gentlemen on Rech: (1) Do they
deny that throughout the history of international democracy, especially
since the middle of the nineteenth century, self-determination of nations
has been taken to mean precisely political self-determination, the right
to form an independent national state? (2) Do they deny that the well*
known resolution adopted by the International Socialist Congress in Lon-
don in 1896 has the same meaning? and (3) Do they deny that Plekhanov,
in writing about self-determination as far back as 1902, meant precisely
political self-determination? When Proletarskaya Pravda put these three
questions, the Cadets shut up\\
Not a word did they say in reply, for they had nothing to say. They
had tacitly to admit that Proletarskaya Pravda was absolutely right.
The outcries of the Liberals that the term "self-determination" is
vague and that the Social-Democrats "hopelessly cottfuse" it with secession
682 V. I. LENIN
«re nothing more than attempts to confuse the issue, to evade admitting
a universally established democratic principle. If the Semkovskys, Lieb-
manns and Yurkeviches were not so ignorant, they would be ashamed to
speak to the workers like Liberals.
But to proceed. Proletarskaya Pravda compelled Rech to admit that
in the program of the Constitutional-Democrats the term "cultural" self-
determination means in effect the repudiation of political self-determina-
tion.
"Actually, the Constitutional-Democrats have never pledged them-
selves to advocate the right of 'nations to secede 'from the Russian state"
— it was not without reason that the Proletarskaya Pravda recommended
these words from Rech to the Novoye Vremya and the Zemshchina (The
People) as an example of the "loyalty" of our Cadets. Not missing the
opportunity of mentioning the "Jews" and of making all kinds of caustic
remarks at the expense of the Cadets, the Novoye Vremya, in its issue
No. 13,563, nevertheless stared:
"What is an axiom of political wisdom among the Social-Demo-
crats" (i.e., the recognition of the right of nations to self-determina-
tion, to secession), "is, today, beginning to arouse differences of
opinion even in Cadet circles."
By declaring that they "have never pledged themselves to advocate
the right of nations to secede from the Russian state," the Cadets, in prin-
ciple, have taken exactly the same position as the Novoye Vremya. This
is precisely one of the principles of Cadet National-Liberalism, which
makes them akin to the Purishkeviches, and is one of the causes of their
political dependence, ideological and practical, on the latter. Proletar-
tkaya Pravda wrote: "Messrs, the Cadets have studied history and are
perfectly well aware of the 'pogrom- like,' to put it mildly, actions to
which the exercise of the ancient right of the Purishkeviches to 'arrest
and prevent' has often led." Although they are perfectly well aware of
the feudal source and nature of the omnipotence of the Purishkeviches,
the Cadets, nevertheless, are taking their stand on the basis of the rela-
tions and frontiers created by this very class. Knowing perfectly well
how much there is in the relations and frontiers created or fixed by this
class that is un- European, anti-European (we would say Asiatic if this
did not sound undeservedly derogatory to the Japanese and Chinese),
Messrs, the Cadets, nevertheless, accept them as the limit beyond which
they dare not go.
Thus, they are adjusting themselves to the Purishkeviches, cringing
to them, fearing to endanger their position, protecting them from the peo-
ple's movement, from the democracy. As Proletarskaya Pravda wrote:
"Actually, this means that they are adjusting themselves to the interests
of the feudal lords and to the worst nationalistic prejudices of the domi-
nant nation instead of systematically combating these prejudices."
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 583
As men who are familiar with history and claim to be democrats, the
Cadets do not even attempt to assert that the democratic movement
which today characterizes Eastern Europe and Asia and is striving to
change both on the model of the civilized capitalist countries, that this
movement must leave intact the boundaries fixed by the feudal epoch,
the epoch of the omnipotence of the Purishkeviches and the disfranchise-
ment of wide strata of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.
The fact that the question raised in the controversy between the Pro-
letarskaya Pravda and Reck was not merely a literary question, but one
that concerned a real political issue of the day, was proved, among other
things, by the last conference of the Constitutional-Democratic Party,
held in March 23-25, 1914. In the official report of this conference in
Bech (No. 83, of March 26, 1914) we read:
"A particularly lively discussion also took place on national
problems. The Kiev deputies, who were supported by N. V. Nek-
rasov and A. M. Kolyubakin, pointed out that the national question
is becoming an important factor that will have to be taken up
more resolutely than hitherto. F. F. Kokoshkin pointed out,
however" (this "however" is like Shchedrin's "but" — "The ears will
never grow higher than the forehead, never!"), "that both the pro-
gram and past political experience demand that 'elastic formulas'
of 'political self-determination of nationalities' should be handled
very carefully."
This highly remarkable line of reasoning at the Cadet conference
deserves the serious attention of all Marxists and of all democrats. (We
will note in parenthesis that the Kievskaya Mysl [The Kiev Thought],
which is evidently very well informed and no doubt presents Mr. Kokosh-
kin 's ideas correctly, added that he laid special stress, as a warning to
his opponents, of course, on the danger of the "disintegration" of
the state.)
The official report in Rech is composed with consummate diplomatic
skill, so as to raise the curtain as little as possible and to conceal as much
as possible. Yet, in the main, what happened at the Cadet conference is
quite clear. The Liberal bourgeois delegates who were familiar with the
state of affairs in the Ukraine, and the "Left" Cadets raised the question
of political self-determination of nations. Otherwise, there would have
been no reason for Mr. Kokoshkin to urge that this "formula" should be
"handled carefully."
The Cadet program, with which, naturally, the delegates at the Cadet
conference were familiar, speaks not of political but of "cultural" self-
determination. Hence, Mr. Kokoshkin was defending the program against
the Ukrainian delegates, against the Left Cadets; he was defending "cul-
tural" self-determination as against "political" self-determination. It
Is guite obvious that in opposing "political" self-determination, in talking
584 V. I. LENIN
about the danger of the "disintegration of the state," in calling the for-
mula "political self-determination** an "elastic" one (just as Rosa Luxem-
burg does!), Mr. Kokoshkin was defending Great- Russian National-
Liberalism against the more "Left" or more democratic elements of the
Constitutional-Democratic Party, and against the Ukrainian bourgeoisie.
Mr. Kokoshkin was victorious at the Cadet conference, as is evident
from the treacherous little word "however" in the report in Rech. Great-
Russian National-Liberalism has triumphed among the Cadets. Will
not this victory help to clear the minds of those unwise individuals among
the Marxists in Russia who, like the Cadets, have also begun to fear the
"elastic formulas of political self-determination of nationalities"?
Let us, "however," examine the substance of Mr. Kokoshkin 's line of
thought. By referring to "past political experience" (i.e., evidently, the ex-
perience of 1905, when the Great- Russian bourgeoisie grew alarmed about
its national privileges and infected the Cadet Party with its fears), and
by talking about the danger of the "disintegration of the state," Mr. Ko-
koshkin showed that he understood perfectly well that political self-
determination can mean nothing else than the right to secede and to
form an independent national state. The question is: How should Mr.
Kokoshkin's fears be appraised from the democratic standpoint in general,
and from the standpoint of the proletarian class struggle in particular?
Mr. Kokoshkin wants to assure us that recognition of the right to seces-
sion would increase the danger of the "disintegration of the state." This
is the viewpoint of Constable Mymretsov,* whose motto was: "arrest
and prevent." From the democratic viewpoint, the very opposite is the
case: recognition of the right to secession reduces the danger of the "disin-
tegration of the state."
Mr. Kokoshkin argues exactly like the nationalists. At their last con-
gress they fiercely attacked the Ukrainian"Mazeppa-ites." The Ukrainian
movement, exclaimed Messrs. Savenko and Co., threatens to weaken the
ties between the Ukraine and Russia; for by her Ukrainophilism Austria
is strengthening her ties with Ukrainians!! Why Russia cannot try to
"strengthen" her ties with the Ukrainians by the same methods that Messrs,
the Savenkos blame Austria for using, i.e., by granting the Ukrainians
freedom to use their own language, self-government, an autonomous Diet
etc., remains unexplained.
The arguments of the Savenkos and Kokoshkins are exactly alike,
and they are equally ridiculous and absurd from the purely logical point
of view. Is it not clear that the more liberty the Ukrainian nationality
enjoys in any particular country, the firmer will its ties with that country
be? One would think that this truism cannot be disputed unless one totally
abandons all the premises of democracy. And can there be greater freedom
* Constable Mymretsov—A zealous provincial policeman deplete^ Jn C
Ujpcntky's story: The Police Station,— Ed,
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 585
of nationality, as such, than freedom to secede, freedom to form an inde-
pendent national state?
To make this question, which has been so confused by the Liberals
(and by those who echo them in their simplicity), a little clearer, we shall
cite a very simple example. Let us take the question of divorce. In het
article Rosa Luxemburg writes that the centralized democratic state,
while conceding autonomy to its constituent parts, should retain the most
important branches of legislation, including legislation on divorce, under
the jurisdiction of the central parliament. The desire that the central
authority of the democratic state should have the power to grant freedom
of divorce is quite comprehensible. The reactionaries are opposed to free-
dom of divorce; they say that this must be "handled carefully," and loudly
declare that it means the "disintegration of the family." The democrats,
however, believe that the reactionaries are hypocrites, that actually, they
are defending the omnipotence of the police and the bureaucracy, the privi-
leges of one sex and the worst kind of oppression of women. They believe
that freedom of divorce will not cause the "disintegration" of family
ties but, on the contrary, will strengthen them on a democratic basis,
which is the only possible and durable basis in civilized society.
To accuse the supporters of freedom of self-determination, i.e., freedom
to secede, of encouraging separatism, is as foolish and as hypocritical as
accusing the advocates of freedom of divorce of wishing to destroy family
ties. Just as in bourgeois society the defenders of privilege and corrup-
tion, on which bourgeois marriage rests oppose freedom of divorce, so,
in the capitalist state, repudiation of the right to self-determination,
i.e., the right of nations to secede, is tantamount to defending the privi-
leges of the dominating nation and police methods of administration
as against democratic methods.
No doubt, the political corruption engendered by the relations prevail-
ing in capitalist society, sometimes leads members of parliament and
journalists to indulge in frivolous and even in just nonsensical twaddle
about a particular nation seceding. But only reactionaries can allow them-
selves to be frightened (or pretend to be frightened) by such twaddle. Those
who stand by democratic principles, t'.e., who insist that questions of
state must be decided by the people, know very well that there is a very
big difference between what the politicians prate about and what the
people decide. The people know from daily experience the value of geo-
graphical and economic ties and the advantages of a big market and of a big
state. They will, therefore, resort to secession only when national oppres-
sion and national friction make joint life absolutely intolerable and hinder
all economic intercourse. In that case, the interests of capitalist develop-
ment and of the freedom of the class struggle will be best served by seces-
sion.
Thus, from whatever angle we approach Mr. Kokoshkin's arguments
they prove to be absolutely absurd and a mockery of the principles of dc-
586 V. I. LENIN
mocracy. But there is a modicum of logic in these arguments, the logic
of the class interests of the Great- Russian bourgeoisie. Like, the majority
of the members of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, Mr. Kokoshkin
is a guardian of the moneybags of this bourgeoisie. He defends its privi-
leges in general, and its state privileges in particular. He defends them hand
in hand with Purishkevich, shoulder to shoulder with him, the only differ-
ence between them being that Purishkevich puts more faith in the feudal
cudgel, while Kokoshkin and Co. realize that this cudgel was badly cracked
in 1905, and rely more on bourgeois methods of deceiving the masses, such
as frightening the philistines and the peasants with the spectre of the
"disintegration of the state," deluding them with phrases about combining
"national freedom" with the principles established by history, etc.
The Liberals' hostility to the principle of political self-determination
of nations can have only one real class meaning, and that is, National-
Liberalism, defence of the state privileges of the Great- Russian bour-
geoisie. And the opportunists among the Marxists in Russia, who today,
under the June Third regime, are strenuously opposing the right of nations
to self-determination, the Liquidator Semkovsky, the Bundist Liebmann,
the Ukrainian petty-bourgeois Yurkevich, are actually trailing behind the
National-Liberals, corrupting the working class with National-Liberal
ideas.
The interests of the working class and of its struggle against capitalism
demand complete solidarity and the closest unity of the workers of all
nations; they demand strong opposition to the nationalistic policy of the
bourgeoisie of every nationality. Hence, Social-Democrats would be equally
running counter to proletarian policy and subordinating the workers to
the policy of the bourgeoisie if they were to repudiate the right of nations
to self-determination, i.e., the right of an oppressed nation to secede,
or if they were to support all the national demands of the bourgeoisie
of the oppressed nations. It makes no difference to the wage worker whether
he is exploited chiefly by the Great- Russian bourgeoisie rather than
by the non- Russian bourgeoisie, or by the Polish bourgeoisie rather
than the Jewish bourgeoisie, etc. The wage worker who understands his
class interests is equally indifferent to the state privileges of the Great-
Russian capitalists and to the promises of the Polish or Ukrainian capi-
talists to set up an earthly paradise when they obtain state privileges.
Capitalism is developing and will continue to develop, in one way or
another, both in mixed states and in separate national states.
In any case the wage workers will be exploited. And in order to be able
to fight successfully against exploitation, the proletariat must be free of
nationalism, must be absolutely neutral, so to speak, in the struggle for
supremacy that is going on among the bourgeoisie of the various nations.
If the proletariat of any one nation gives the slightest support to the privi-
leges of "its" national bourgeoisie, this will inevitably rouse distrust
among the proletariat of theotb^r nation; it will weaken the international
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION . &87
class solidarity of the workers and divide them, to the delight of the bour-
geoisie. And repudiation of the right to self-determination, or secession,
inevitably means, in practice, supporting the privileges of the dominating
nation.
We will get even more striking confirmation of this if we take the
concrete case of the secession of Norway from Sweden.
VI. THE SECESSION OF NORWAY FROM SWEDEN
Rosa Luxemburg cites this example and discusses it in the following
way:
"The latest event in the history of federative relations, the seces-
sion of Norway from Sweden — which at the time was hastily caught
up by the social-patriotic Polish press (see the Cracow Naprzod
[ [Forward]) as a gratifying sign of the strength and progressive nature
of the aspirations for state separation — at once provided striking
proof that federalism and its concomitant separation are not an
expression of progress or democracy. After the so-called Norwegian
'revolution,' which meant that the Swedish king was deposed
and compelled to leave Norway, the Norwegians very calmly
chose another king, formally rejecting, by a national referendum,
the proposal to establish a republic. What the superficial admirers
of all national movements and all semblance of independence pro-
claimed as a 'revolution' was simply a manifestation of peasant and
petty-bourgeois particularism, the desire to have their 'own' king
for their money instead of one foisted upon them by the Swedish
aristocracy, and consequently, was a movement that had nothing
to do with revolution. At the same time, the dissolution of the union
between Sweden and Norway showed once again to what extent,
in this case too, federation, which had existed until then, was only
an expression of purely dynastic interests and, therefore, merely
a form of monarchism and reaction. ..." (Przeglad.)
That is literally all that Rosa Luxemburg has to say on this subject 11
It must be confessed that it would have been difficult for Rosa Lux-
emburg to have revealed the hopelessness of her position more vividly
than she has done in this case.
The question was, and is, whether the Social-Democrats in a mixed
national state need a program that recognizes the right to self-determina-
tion or to secession.
What does the example of Norway, cited by Rosa Luxemburg herself,
tell us on this point?
Our author twists and turns, exercises her wit and rails at NaprzM,
but she does not answer the question II Rosa Luxemburg speaks about
688 V. I. LENIN
everything under the sun so as to avoid saying a single word about the ac-
tual point at issue 11
Undoubtedly, in wishing to have their own king for their money, and
in rejecting, in a national referendum, the proposal to establish a republic
the Norwegian petty bourgeoisie displayed exceedingly bad philistine
taste. Undoubtedly, Naprzdd displayed equally bad and equally philis-
tine taste by failing to notice this.
But what has all this to do with the case??
The question under discussion was the right of nations to self-determin-
ation and the attitude the Socialist proletariat should adopt towards
this right! Why, then, does not Rosa Luxemburg answer this question
instead of skirting around it?
It is said that in the eyes of a mouse there is no animal stronger than the
cat. In Rosa Luxemburg's eyes there is evidently no animal stronger than
the "Fraki." "Fraki" is tne popular term for the "Polish Socialist
Party," the so-called revolutionary faction, and the Cracow newspaper,
the Naprzdd, shares the views of this "faction." Rosa Luxemburg is so
blinded by her fight against the nationalism of this "faction" that every-
thing except the Naprzdd drops out of sight.
If the Naprzdd says "yes," Rosa Luxemburg considers it her bounden
duty immediately to say "no," without stopping to think that by doing
so she does not show that she is independent of the Naprzdd , but on the
contrary, she shows that she is ludicrously dependent on the "Fraki," that
she is unable to see things from a somewhat deeper and broader viewpoint
than that of the Cracow ant-hill. The Naprzddy of course, is a wretched,
and by no means a Marxian organ; but this should not prevent us from
properly analysing the example of Norway, once we have chosen it.
To analyse this example in a Marxian way, we must deal, not with the
vices of the awfully terrible "Fraki," but, firstly, with the concrete his-
torical features of the secession of Norway from Sweden, and, secondly,
with the tasks the proletariat of both countries was confronted with in
connection with this secession.
The geographic, economic and language ties between Norway and Swe-
den are no less close than those between the Great Russians and many other
Slav nations. But the union between Norway and Sweden was not a volunt-
ary one, so that Rosa Luxemburg's reference to "federation" is quite
beside the point, and she had recourse to it simply because she did not
know what to say. Norway was ceded to Sweden by the monarchs during
the Napoleonic wars, against the will of the Norwegians; and the Swedes
had to send troops into Norway to subjugate her.
Despite the exceptionally extensive autonomy which Norway enjoyed
(she had her own parliament, etc.), for many decadea after the union there
was constant friction between Norway and Sweden, and the Norwegians
tried to throw off the yoke of the Swedish aristocracy. At last, in August
1905, they succeeded; the Norwegian parliament r^lye^ that,
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 589
king was no longer king of Norway , and in the referendum held later among
the Norwegian people, the overwhelming majority (about 200,000 as against
a few hundred) voted for complete separation from Sweden. After a short
period of indecision, the Swedes resigned themselves to the fact of seces-
sion.
This example shows us on what grounds cases of the secession of na-
tions are possible, and actually occur, under the modern economic and
political relations, and the form secession sometimes assumes under condi-
tions of political freedom and democracy.
Not a single Social-Democrat, unless he wants to profess that political
freedom and democracy are matters of indifference to him (and in that
case he would naturally cease to be a Social-Democrat), can deny that this
example is practical proof that it is the bounden duty of class-conscious
workers to conduct systematic propaganda and prepare the ground for
the settlement of conflicts that may arise over the secession of nations
not in the "Russian way," but only in the way they were settled in 1905
between Norway and Sweden. This is exactly what the demand in the
program for the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination
means. But Rosa Luxemburg tried to get round a fact that was repugnant
to her theory by severely attacking the philistinism of the Norwegian
philistines and the Cracow Naprzod; for she understood perfectly well
that this historical fact utterly refutes her contention that the right to
self-determination of nations is a "utopia," that it is like the right "to
eat from gold plates," etc. Such phrases only express a smug, opportunist
faith in the immutability of the present alignment of forces among the
nationalities of Eastern Europe.
Let us proceed further. In the question of the self-determination of
nations, as in every other question, we are interested, first and foremost,
in the self-determination of the proletariat within a given nation. Rosa
Luxemburg modestly evaded this question too, for she realized that an
analysis of it on the basis of the example of Norway, which she herself
chose, would be disastrous for her "theory."
What position did the Norwegian and Swedish proletariat take, and
have to take, in the conflict over secession? After Norwav seceded, the
class -conscious workers of Norway would naturally vote for a republic,*
and if some Socialists voted otherwise it only goes to show how much
stupid, philistine opportunism there sometimes is in the European Social-
ist movement. There can be no two opinions about that, and we mention
this point only because Rosa Luxemburg is trying to obscure the issue
* If the majority of the Norwegian nation had been in favour of a monarchy
while the proletariat had wanted a republic, then, generally speaking, the Nor-
wegian proletariat would have been confronted with the alternative: either revo-
lution, if conditions were ripe for it, or subordination to the will of the majority
and prolonged propaganda and agitation work.
O V. I. LENIN
by speaking beside the point. We do not know whether the Norwegian So-
cialist program made it obligatory for Norwegian Social-Democrats to
hold a particular view on the question of secession. We will assume that it
did not, that the Norwegian Socialists left it an open question as to whether
the autonomy of Norway gave sufficient scope for freely waging the class
stfuggle, or whether eternal friction and conflicts with the Swedish aris-
tocracy hindered the freedom of economic life. But the fact that it was
the duty of the Norwegian proletariat to oppose this aristocracy and to
support Norwegian peasant democracy (even with all its philistine limit-
ations) cannot be disputed.
And what about the Swedish proletariat? It is common knowledge that
the Swedish landlords, abetted by the Swedish clergy, advocated war
against Norway. And since Norway was much weaker than Sweden, since it
had already experienced a Swedish invasion and since the Swedish aristocra-
cy carries enormous weight in its own country, this advocacy of war gave
rise to a great danger. We may be sure that the Swedish Kokoshkins spent
much time and energy in trying to corrupt the minds of the Swedish people
by appeals to "handle carefully" the "elastic formulas of political self-
determination of nations, "by painting horrible pictures of the danger of
the "disintegration of the state" and by assuring them that "national
freedom" was compatible with the principles of the Swedish aristocracy.
There cannot be the slightest doubt that the Swedish Social-Demo-
crats would have betrayed the cause of Socialism and the cause of
democracy if they had not fought hard to combat the landlord and
"Kokoshkin" ideology and policy, and if they had not demanded not only
equality of nations in general (to which the Kokoshkins also subscribe)
but also the right of nations to self-determination, Norway's freedom
to secede.
The fact that the Swedish workers recognized the right of the Norwe-
gians to secede served to strengthen the fraternal class solidarity and unity
of the Norwegian and Swedish workers. For this convinced the Norwegian
workers that the Swedish workers were not infected with Swedish national-
ism, that they placed fraternity with the Norwegian proletarians above
the privileges of the Swedish bourgeoisie and aristocracy. The dissolution
of the ties that had been foisted upon Norway by the monarchs of Europe
and the Swedish aristocracy strengthened the ties between the Norwegian
and Swedish workers. The Swedish workers proved that in spite of
all the vicissitudes of bourgeois policy — bourgeois relations may quite pos-
sibly cause a repetition of the forcible sub jection of the Norwegians to the
Swedes! — they will be able to preserve and defend the complete equality
and class solidarity of the workers of both nations in the fight against
both the Swedish and the Norwegian bourgeoisie.
Incidentally, this reveals how groundless and even frivolous are the
attempts the "Fraki" sometimes make to "use" our disagreements with
Rosa Luxemburg against the Polish Social-Democrats. The "Fraki *
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION &91
are not proletarian, and not a Socialist, but a petty-bourgeois nationalist
party, something like Polish Social- Revolutionaries. There never has beeix,
nor could there be any question of unity between the Russian Social-
Democrats and this party. On the other hand, not a single Russian So-
cial-Democrat has ever "repented" of the close relations and unity that
have been established with the Polish Social-Democrats. The Polish
Social-Democrats have rendered great historical service by creating the
first really Marxist, really proletarian party in Poland, a country which
is thoroughly imbued with nationalistic aspirations and passions.
But the service the Polish Social-Democrats have rendered is a great
one not because Rosa Luxemburg has talked a lot of nonsense about
point 9 of the Russian Marxian program, but despite this sad circum-
stance.
The question of the "right to self-determination," of course, is not so
important for the Polish Social-Democrats as it is for the Russians. It is
quite understandable that in their 2eal (sometimes a little excessive, per-
haps) to combat the nationalistically blinded petty bourgeoisie of Poland
the Polish Social-Democrats should "overdo" it. No Russian Marxist ever
thought of blaming the Polish Social -Democrats for being opposed to the
secession of Poland. These Social-Democrats err only when, like Rosa
Luxemburg, they try to deny the necessity of including the recogni-
tion of the right to self-determination in the program of the Russian
Marxists.
Virtually, this is like attempting to apply what is suitable when mea-
sured by Cracow standards to all the peoples and nations inhabiting
Russia, including the Great Russians. It means being "Polish nationalists
inside out" and not Russian, not international Social-Democrats.
For international Social-Democracy stands for the recognition of the
right of nations to self-determination. This is what we shall now proceed
to discuss.
VII. THE RESOLUTION OF THE LONDON INTERNATIONAL
CONGRESS, 1896
This resolution reads:
"The Congress declares that it upholds the full right of self-
determination [Selbstbestimmungsrecht] of all nations and expresses
its sympathy for the workers of every country now suffering under
the yoke of military, national or other despotism; the Congress
calls on the workers of all these countries to join the ranks of the
class-conscious [Kla&aGnbewusste— those who understand their class
interests] workers of the whole world and to fight shoulder to shoul-
&92 V. I. LENIN
dcr with them for the defeat of international capitalism and for
the achievement of the aims of international Social-Democracy."*
As we have already pointed out, our opportunists, Messrs. Semkovsky,
Liebmann and Yuxkevich, are simply unaware of this resolution. But Rosa
Luxemburg is aware of it and quotes the full text, which contains the same
expression as that contained in our program, "self-determination."
The question is how does Rosa Luxemburg remove this obstacle which
lies in the path of her "original" theory?
Oh, quite simply . . . the whole emphasis lies in the second part of
the resolution ... its declaratory character . . . one would refer to it
only under a mis apprehension 11
The helplessness and perplexity of our author are simply astounding.
Usually, only the opportunists argue that the consistent democratic and
Socialist points in the program are merely declarations, and cravenly avoid
an open debate on these points. Not without reason, apparently, has Rosa
Luxemburg found herself this time in the deplorable company of Messrs.
Semkovsky, Liebmann and Yurkevich. Rosa Luxemburg does not ven-
ture to state openly whether she regards the above resolution as correct
or erroneous. She wriggles and twists as if counting on the inattentive or
ill-informed reader who forgets the first part of the resolution by the time
he has started reading the second, or who has never heard of the discus-
sions that took place in the Socialist press prior to the London Congress.
However, Rosa Luxemburg is greatly mistaken if she imagines that
she can so easily, before the class-conscious workers of Russia, trample upon
the resolution of the International on such an important question of prin-
ciple without even deigning to analyse it critically.
Rosa Luxemburg's point of view was voiced during the discussions
which took place prior to the London Congress, mainly in the columns of
Die Neue Zeit, the organ of the German Marxists, and this point of view
was virtually rejected by the Internationall That is the crux of the matter,
which the Russian reader particularly must bear in mind.
The debate turned on the question of the independence of Poland.
Three points of view were advanced:
1. The point of view of the "Fraki," on whose behalf Hecker spoke.
They wanted the International to include in its program the demand for
the independence of Poland. This proposal was not accepted. This point
of view was rejected by the International.
* See the official German report of the London Congress: "Verhandlungen
und Beschlusse des international sozialistischen Arbeiter- und Qewerkschafts-Kon-
presses zu London, vom. 27. Juli bis 1. August 1896." Berlin, 1897, S. 18. (Pro-
ceedings and Decisions of the International Socialist Labour and Trade Union Con-
gress, held in London, July 27 to August 1, 1896 Berlin, 1897, p. 18.— Ed.) A Rus-
sian pamphlet has been published containing the decisions of International
Congresses, in which the word "self-determination" is wrongly translated as
"autonomy."
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 698
2. Rosa Luxemburg's point of view, viz., that the Polish Socialists must
not demand the independence of Poland. This point of view entirely pre-
cluded the proclamation of the right of nations to self-determination.
This point of view was likewise rejected by the International.
3. The point of view which was then most comprehensively expounded
by K. Kautsky in opposing Rosa Luxemburg, when he proved that her
materialism was extremely "one-sided." According to this point of view,
the International cannot at the present time make the independence of
Poland a point in its program; but the Polish Socialists — said Kautsky —
are fully entitled to advance such a demand. From the point of view of
the Socialists, it is absolutely a mistake to ignore the tasks of national
liberation in a situation where national oppression exists.
The resolution of the International reproduces the most essential,
the fundamental propositions of this point of view: on the one hand, the
absolutely direct, unequivocal recognition of the full right of all nations
to self-determination; on the other hand, the equally unambiguous appeal
to the workers for international unity in their class struggle.
We think that this resolution is absolutely correct, and that for the
countries of Eastern Europe and Asia in the beginning of the twentieth
century it is precisely this resolution, in both its parts taken as an insepa-
rable whole, that gives the only correct lead to the proletarian class
policy in the national question.
We will deal with the three above-mentioned points of view in some-
what greater detail.
It is well known that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels considered that
it was the bounden duty of the whole of West European democracy, and still
more of Social-Democracy, actively to support the demand for the indepen-
dence of Poland. For the period of the 1840 's, and 1860's, the period of the
bourgeois revolutions in Austria and Germany, and the period of the "Peas-
ant Reform" in Russia, this point of view was quite correct and the only
one that was consistently democratic and proletarian. So long as the masses
of the people in Russia, and in most of the Slavic countries, were still
dormant, so long as there were no independent, mass, democratic movements
in these countries, the aristocratic liberation movement in Poland assumed
immense, paramount importance from the point of view, not only of Rus-
sian, not only of Slavic, but of European democracy as a whole.*
But while this standpoint of Marx was correct for the sixties or for
the third quarter of the nineteenth century, it has ceased to be correct in
the twentieth century. Independent democratic movements, and even an
* It would be a very interesting piece of historical research to compare the
position of a Polish aristocrat-rebel in 1863 with that of the Russian democrat-
revolutionary, Chernyshevsky, who, too (like Marx), knew how to appraise the
importance of the Polish movement, and with that of the Ukrainian petty bour-
geois Dragornanov, who appeared much later and expressed the point of view of
a peasant, so ignorant, so sleepy and attached so fast to his dung-heap, that his
88-685
694 V. I. LENIN
independent proletarian movement, have arisen in most Slavic countries,
even in one of the most backward Slavic countries, Russia. Aristocratic
Poland has disappeared, yielding place to capitalist Poland. Under such
circumstances Poland could not but lose its exceptional revolutionary
importance.
The attempt of the P.P.S. (the Polish Socialist Party, the present-
day "Fraki") in 1896 to "fix" for all time the point of view Marx held
in a different epoch was an attempt to use the letter of Marxism against
the spirit of Marxism. Therefore, the Polish Social-Democrats were quite
right when they attacked the extreme nationalism of the Polish petty
bourgeoisie and pointed out that the national question was of secondary
importance for Polish workers, when they for the first time created a
purely proletarian party in Poland and proclaimed the extremely impor-
tant principle that the Polish and the Russian workers must maintain
the closest alliance in their class struggle.
But did this mean that at the beginning of the twentieth century the
International could regard the principle of political self-determination
of nations, or the right to secession, as superfluous for Eastern Europe
and for Asia? This would have been the height of absurdity, and (theo-
retically) tantamount to admitting that the bourgeois-democratic refor-
mation of the Turkish, Russian and Chinese states has been consummat-
ed, would have been tantamount (in effect) to opportunism towards
despotism.
No. During the period of incipient bourgeois-democratic revolutions
in Eastern Europe and Asia, during the period of the awakening and
intensification of national movements, during the period of formation
of independent proletarian parties, the task of these parties in connection
with national policy must be twofold: First, to recognize the right to
self-determination for all nations, because the bourgeois-democratic
reformation is not yet consummated, because working-class democracy
consistently, seriously and sincerely, and not in a Liberal, Kokoshkin
fashion, fights for equal rights for nations, and second, to maintain the
closest, inseparable alliance in the class struggle of the proletarians of
all nations in a given state, throughout all the vicissitudes of its history*
irrespective of any reshaping of the frontiers of the individual states by
the bourgeoisie.
It is precisely this twofold task of the proletariat that the resolution
of the International of 1896 formulates. And this is the substance, the
underlying principle, of the resolution adopted by the Conference of
Russian Marxists held in the summer of 1913. Some people profess to
legitimate hatred of the Polish aristocracy prevented him from understanding
the significance of their struggle for all- Russian democracy. (See Dragomanov,.
Historical Poland and Pan-Russian Democracy.) Dragomanov richly deserved
the fervent kisses which were subsequently bestowed on him by Mr. P.B. Struve>
who by that time had become a National-Liberal.
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 6%
sec a "contradiction** in the fact that while point 4 of this resolution,
which recognizes the right to self-determination, to secession, seems to
"concede" the maximum to nationalism (in reality the recognition of the
right of all nations to self-determination implies the recognition of the
maximum of democracy and the minimum of nationalism), point 5 warns
the workers against the nationalistic slogans of the bourgeoisie of any
nation and demands the unity and fusion of the workers of all nations
into internationally united proletarian organizations. But this "contradic-
tion" is apparent only to extremely shallow minds which cannot grasp,
for instance, why the unity and class solidarity of the Swedish and the
Norwegian proletariat were strengthened when the Swedish workers up-
held Norway's freedom to secede and form an independent state.
VIII. KARL MARX THE UTOPIAN AND PRACTICAL ROSA
LUXEMBURG
While declaring^! the independence of Poland to be a "utopia" and
repeating it ad nauseam^ Rosa Luxemburg exclaims ironically: why not
raise the demand for the independence of Ireland?
Evidently, "practical" Rosa Luxemburg is unaware of Karl Marx's
attitude to the question of the independence of Ireland. It is worth while
dwelling upon this, in order to show how a definite demand for national
independence was analysed from a really Marxian and not an opportun-
ist standpoint.
It was Marx's custom to "probe the teeth," as he expressed it, of his
Socialist acquaintances, testing their intelligence and the strength of
their convictions. Having made the acquaintance of Lopatin,* Marx
wrote to Engels on July 5, 1870, expressing a highly flattering opinion
of the young Russian Socialist but adding at the same time:
". . . Poland is his weak point. On this point he speaks quite like
an Englishman — say, an English Chartist of the old school — about
Ireland."
Marx questions a Socialist belonging to an oppressing nation about his
attitude to the oppressed nation and he at once reveals the defect common
to the Socialists of the dominant nations (the British and the Russian):
they fail to understand their Socialist duties towards the downtrodden
nations, they echo the prejudices of the "Great Power" bourgeoisie.
* Q.A. Lopatin — a prominent Russian revolutionary; member of the General
Council of the First International, Paris; member of the Executive Committee
of the "Narodnaya Volya" Party; was incarcerated in the Schlusselburg Fortreat
from which he was released as a result of the 1905 revolution. — Ed. .
38*
696 V. I. LENIN
Before passing on to Marx's positive declarations on Ireland, we
must point out that in general the attitude of Marx and Engels to the
national question was strictly critical, and that they recognised its his-
torically relative importance. Thus, Engels wrote to Marx on May 23,
1851, that the study of history was leading him to pessimistic conclu-
sions concerning Poland, that the importance of Poland was temporary,
that it would last only until the agrarian revolution in Russia. The role
of the Poles in history was one of "brave, quarrelsome stupidity."
"And one cannot point to a single instance in which Poland
represented progress successfully, even if only in relation to Rus-
sia, or did anything at all of historic importance." Russia contains
more elements of civilisation, education, industry and of the
bourgeoisie than the "Poles, whose whole nature is that of the idle
cavalier. . . . What are Warsaw and Cracow compared to St. Pe-
tersburg, Moscow, Odessa, etc.!"
Engels had no faith in the success of an insurrection of the Polish
aristocracy.
But all these thoughts, so full of genius and penetration, by no means
prevented Engels and Marx from treating the Polish movement with
the most profound and ardent sympathy twelve years later, when Rus-
sia was still dormant and Poland was seething.
When drafting the Address of the International in 1864, Marx wrote
to Engels (on November 4, 1864) that he had to combat Mazzini's na-
tionalism, and went on to say:
"In so far as international politics come into the Address, I
speak of countries, not of nationalities, and denounce Russia, not
the lesser nations."
Marx had no doubt as to the subordinate position of the national ques-
tion as compared with the "labour question." But his theory is as far
from ignoring the national question as heaven from earth.
1866 arrives. Marx writes to Engels about the "Proudhonist clique"
in Paris which
". . . declares nationalities to be an absurdity and attacks Bis-
marck and Garibaldi. As polemics against chauvinism their tac-
tics are useful and explicable. But when the believers in Prou-
dhon (my good friends here, Lafargue and Longuet also belong to
them) think that all Europe can and should sit quietly and peace-
fully on its behind until the gentlemen in France abolish poverty
and ignorance . . . they become ridiculous." (Letter of June 7, 1866.)
"Yesterday," Marx writes on June 20, "there was a discussion
in the International Council on the present war. . . . The discus-
sion wound up, as was to be expected, with 'the question of nation-
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION &97
ality' in general and the attitude we should take towards it. . . .
The representatives of 'Young France' (non-nsorkers) came out
with the announcement that all nationalities and even nations
were 'antiquated prejudices.' Proudhonised Stirnerism. . . . The
whole world waits until the French are ripe for a social revolu-
tion. . . . The English laughed very much when I began my speech
by saying that our friend Lafargue, etc., who had done away with
nationalities, had spoken 'French' to us, i.e., a language which
nine-tenths of the audience did not understand. I also suggested
that by the negation of nationalities he appeared, quite uncon-
sciously, to understand their absorption into the model French
nation."
The conclusion that follows from all these critical remarks of Marx
is clear: the working class should be the last to make a fetish of the na-
tional question, since the development of capitalism does not necessarily
awaken all nations to independent life. But to brush aside the mass na-
tional movements once they have started and to refuse to support what
is progressive in them means, in effect, pandering to nationalistic prej-
udices, viz., recognizing "one's own" as the "model nation" (or, we will
add, as the nation possessing the exclusive privilege of forming
a state).*
But let us return to the question of Ireland.
Marx's position on this question is most clearly expressed in the fol-
lowing extracts from his letters:
"I have done my best to bring about this demonstration of the
British workers in favour of Fenianism. ... I used to think the
separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now think it
inevitable, although after the separation there may come federa-
tion."
This is what Marx wrote to Engels on November 2, 1867.
In his letter of November 30 of the same year he added:
". . . what shall we advise the English workers? In my opinion
they must make the repeal of the Union™ [i.e., the separation of Ire-
land from Great Britain] "(in short, the affair of 1783, only de-
mocratized and adapted to the conditions of the time) into an
article of their pronunziamento. This is the only legal and there-
fore only possible form of Irish emancipation which can be ad-
mitted in the program of an English party. Experience must show
* See also Marx's letter to Engels of June 3, 1867: "... I have learned with
real pleasure from the Paris letters to the Times about the pro- Polish sentiments
of the Parisians as against Russia. . . .M. Proudhon and his little doctrinaire clique
are not the French people/'
&98 V. I* LENIN
later whether a purely personal union can continue to subsist be-
tween the two countries. , . .
"What the Irish need is:
"1) Self-government and independence from England;
"2) An agrarian revolution. ..."
Marx attached great importance to the question of Ireland and he deliv-
ered lectures of one-and-a-half-hours ' duration at the German Workers'
Union on this subject (letter of December 17, 1867).
Engels notes in a letter of November 20, 1868, "the hatred for the
Irish among the British workers," and almost a year later (October 24,
1869), returning to this question he writes:
"II n'y a qu'un pas" (it is only one step) "from Ireland to Rus-
sia. . . ." "Irish history shows one how disastrous it is for a na-
tion when it has subjugated another nation. All the abominations
of the English have their origin in the Irish Pale. I have still
to work through the Cromwellian period, but this much seems
certain to me, that things would have taken another turn in En-
gland but for the necessity for military rule in Ireland and the cre-
ation of a new aristocracy there."
Let us note, by the way, Marx's letter to Engels of August 18, 1869:
"la Posen . . . the Polish workers , . . have brought a strike to
a victorious end by the help of their colleagues in Berlin. This
struggle against Monsieur le Capital — even in the subordinate form
of the strike — is a very different way of getting rid of national
prejudices from that of the bourgeois gentlemen with their peace
declamations."
The policy on the Irish question pursued by Marx in the International
may be seen from the following:
On November 18, 1869, Marx writes to Engels that he spoke for an
hour and a quarter in the Council of the International on the question
of the attitude of the British Ministry to the Irish amnesty and proposed
the following resolutions:
"Resolved,
"that in his reply to the Irish demands for the release of the
imprisoned Irish patriots * . . Mr. Gladstone deliberately insults
the Irish nation;
"that he clogs political amnesty with conditions alike degrad-
ing to the victims of misgovernment and the people they belong to;
"that having, in the teeth of his responsible position, publicly
and enthusiastically cheered on the American slave-holders' re-
bellion, he now steps in to preach to the Irish people the doctrine
of passive obedience;
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 599
"that his whole proceedings with reference to the Irish amnesty
question are the true and genuine offspring of that 'policy of con-
quest,' by the fiery denunciation of which Mr. Gladstone ousted
his Tory rivals from office;
"that the General Council of the 'International Workingmen's
Association9 express their admiration of the spirited, firm and high-
souled manner in which the Irish people carry on their amnesty
movement;
"that these resolutions be communicated to all branches of,
and workingmen's bodies connected with, the 'International Work-
ingmen's Association* in Europe and America."
On December 10, 1869, Marx writes that his paper on the Irish ques-
tion to be read at the Council of the International will be framed on the
following lines:
". . . quite apart from all phrases about 'international ' and
'humane1 justice for Ireland — which are to be taken for granted
in the International Council — it is in the direct and absolute interest of
the English working class to get rid of their present connection with
Ireland. And this is my most complete conviction, and for reasons
which}! n part I cannot tell the English workers themselves. For a long
time I believed that it would be possible to overthrow the Irish
regime by English working-class ascendancy. I always expressed
. this point of view in The New York Tribune [an American journal
to which Marx contributed for a long time]. Deeper study has now
convinced me of the opposite. The English working class will nev-
er accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland. . . , En-
glish reaction in England had its roots . . . in the subjugation of Ire-
land." (Marx's italics.)
Marx's policy on the Irish question should now be quite clear to the
readers.
Marx, the "utopian," was so "impractical" that he stood for the sep-
aration of Ireland, which has not been realized even half a century
later. What gave rise to Marx's policy, and was it not a mistake?
At first Marx thought that Ireland would be liberated not by the na-
tional movement of the oppressed nation, but by the labour movement
of the oppressing nation. Marx did not make an absolute of the national
movement, knowing, as he did, that the victory of the working class
alone can bring about the complete liberation of all nationalities. It
is impossible to estimate beforehand all the possible correlations be-
tween the bourgeois liberation movements of the oppressed nations and
the proletarian emancipation movement of the oppressing nation (the
very problem which .today makes the national question in Russia so
difficult.)
600 V. L LENIN
However, matters turned out so that the English working class fell
under the influence of the Liberals for a fairly long time, became an
appendage of the Liberals and by adopting a Liberal-Labour policy ren-
dered itself effete. The bourgeois liberation movement in Ireland grew
stronger and assumed revolutionary forms. Marx reconsidered his view
and corrected it. "How disastrous it is for a nation when it has subju-
gated another nation." The English working class will never be free until
Ireland is freed from the English yoke. Reaction in England is strength-
ened and fostered by the enslavement of Ireland (just as reaction in Rus-
sia is fostered by her enslavement of a number of nations 1).
And Marx, in proposing in the International a resolution of sympathy
with "the Irish nation," "the Irish people" (the clever L.V1. would
probably have berated poor Marx for forgetting about the class struggle!),
advocates the separation of Ireland from England, "although after the
separation there may come federation."
What were the theoretical grounds for Marx's conclusion? In En-
gland the bourgeois revolution had been consummated long ago. But it
had not yet been consummated in Ireland; it is being consummated now,,
after the lapse of half a century, by the reforms of the English Liberals*
If capitalism had been overthrown in England as quickly as Marx at first
expected, there would have been no room for a bourgeois-democratic and
general national movement in Ireland. But since it had arisen, Marx
advised the English workers to support it, to give it a revolutionary im-
petus and lead it to a final issue in the interests of their own liberty.
The economic ties between Ireland and England in the 1860 's were*
of course, even closer than Russia's present ties with Poland, the Ukraine,
etc. The "impracticability" and "impossibility" of the separation of
Ireland (if only owing to geographical conditions and England's immense
colonial power) were quite obvious. While, in principle, an enemy of
federalism, Marx in this instance agrees also to federation,* so long as
the emancipation of Ireland is achieved in a revolutionary and not in a
reformist way, through the movement of the mass of the people of Ireland
supported by the working class of England. There can be no doubt that only
such a solution of the historical problem would be in the best interests
of the proletariat and most favourable for rapid social development.
* By the way, it is not difficult to sec why, from a Social-Democratic point
of view the right of "self-determination" means neither federation nor autonomy.
(Although, speaking in the abstract, both come under the category of "self-deter-
mination.") The right to federation is, in general, an absurdity, since federation
is a two-sided contract. It goes without saying that Marxists cannot place the
defence of federalism in general in their program. As far as autonomy is concerned,.
Marxists defend not "the right to" autonomy but autonomy itself, as a general,
universal principle of a democratic state with a mixed national composition,
with sharp differences in geographical and other conditions. Consequently, the
recognition of the "right of nations to autonomy" is as absurd as the "right of
nations to federation."
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 601
Things turned out differently. Both the Irish people and the English
proletariat proved to be weak. Only now, through the miserable deals
between the English Liberals and the Irish bourgeoisie, is the Irish prob*
lem being solved (the example of Ulster shows with what difficulty),
through the land reform (with compensation) and autonomy (not intro-
duced so far). Well then? Does it follow that Marx and Engels were "utop-
ians," that they advanced "impossible" national demands, that they
allowed themselves to be influenced by the Irish petty-bourgeois na-
tionalists (there is no doubt about the petty- bourgeois nature of the Fen-
ian movement), etc.?
No. In the Irish question too Marx and Engels pursued a consistently
proletarian policy, which really educated the masses in the spirit of demoo-
racy and Socialism. Only such a policy could have saved both Ireland and
England from half a century of delay in the introduction of the necessary
reforms, and could have prevented these reforms from being mutilated by
the Liberals to please the reactionaries.
The policy of Marx and Engels in the Irish question serves as a splendid
example (which retains immense practical importance to the present time)
of the attitude the proletariat of the oppressing nations should adopt
towards national movements. It serves as a warning against that "servile
haste" with which the philistines of all countries, colours and languages
hurry to declare "utopian" the idea of changing the frontiers of states that
have been established by the violence and privileges of the landlords and
bourgeoisie of one nation.
If the Irish and English proletariat had not accepted Marx 's policy, and
had not taken the separation of Ireland as their slogan, they would have
displayed the worst sort of opportunism; they would have shown that they
were oblivious to their duties as democrats and Socialists, and would have
yielded to English reaction and to the English bourgeoisie.
THE 1903 PROGRAM AND ITS LIQUIDATORS
Copies of the Minutes of the 1903 Congress, at which the program of the
Russian Marxists was adopted, have become a rarity, so that the over-
whelming majority of the active workers in the labour movement today are
unacquainted with the motives that underlie the various points of the pro-
gram (the more so since not all the literature relevant thereto enjoys the
blessings of legality. . .). It is therefore necessary to analyse the debate
that took place at the 1903 Congress on the question that interests us.
Let us state first of all that however meagre the Russian Social-
Democratic literature on the "right of nations to self-determination" may
be, it, nevertheless, clearly shows that this right was always understood
to mean the right to secession. The Semkovskys, Liebmanns and Yur-
keviches, who doubt this and declare that point 9 is "vague," etc., do so
602 V.MJENIN
only because of their extreme ignorance or carelessness . As far back at 1902,
Plekhanov, in Zarya, defending "the right to self-determination" in the
draft program, wrote that this demand, while not obligatory for the bour-
geois democrats, is "obligatory for the Social-Democrats.*'
"If we were to forget or hesitate to advance it, " wrote Plekhanov,
"for fear of offending the national prejudices of the present generation
of the Great Russians, the call . . . 'workers of all countries, unitel*
on our lips would become a brazen lie. . . ."
This is a very apt characterization of the fundamental argument in
favour of the point under consideration; so apt that it is not surprising
that the critics of our program who have "forgotten their kin" have been
timidly avoiding it. The renunciation of this point, no matter for what
motives, is really a "shameful" concession to Great-Russian nationalism.
But why Great-Russian, when it is a question of the right of all nations to
self-determination? Because it refers to secession from the Great Russians.
In the interests of the unity of the proletarians, in the interests of their
class solidarity, we must recognize the right of nations to secession — that
is what Plekhanov admitted in the words quoted above fourteen years
ago. Had our opportunists pondered over this they would probably
not have talked so much nonsense about self-determination.
At the 1903 Congress, which adopted the draft program that Plekhanov
advocated, the main work was done in the Program Commission. Unfortu-
nately, no minutes were taken; they would have been particularly interest-
ing on this point, for it was only in the Commission that the representa-
tives of the Polish Social-Democrats, Warszawski and Hanecki, tried to
defend their view and to dispute the "recognition of the right to self-deter-
mination." The reader who took the trouble to compare their arguments
{expounded in the speech by Warszawski and in his and Hanecki 's declara-
tion, pp. 134-36 and 388-90 of the Congress Minutes) with those Rosa
Luxemburg advanced in her Polish article, which we have analysed, would
find that they are quite identical. *
How were these arguments treated by the Program Commission of the
Second Congress, where Plekhanov, more than anyone else, attacked the
Polish Marxists? These arguments were mercilessly ridiculedl The ab-
surdity of proposing to the Marxists of Russia that they delete the recogni-
tion of the right of nations to self-determination was demonstrated so
clearly and vividly that the Polish Marxists did not even venture to repeat
their arguments at the full meeting of the Congressll Convinced of the hope-
lessness of their case at the supreme assembly of Great- Russian, Jewish,
Georgian and Armenian Marxists, they left the Congress.
This historic episode is naturally of very great importance for everyone
who is seriously interested in his program. The fact that the arguments of the
Polish Marxists suffered utter defeat in the Program Commission of the
Congress, and that the Polish Marxists gave up the attempt to defend their
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF- DETERMINATION' 60S
views at the full meeting of the Congress is very significant. It is not with-
out reason that Rosa Luxemburg "modestly" kept silent about it in her
article in 1908; apparently the recollection of the Congress was too unpleas-
ant! She also kept quiet about the ridiculously inept proposal made by
Warszawski and Hanecki in 1903, on behalf of all the Polish Marxists, to
"amend" point 9 of the program, a proposal which neither Rosa Luxemburg
nor the other Polish Social-Democrats have ventured (or will venture) to
repeat.
But although Rosa Luxemburg, concealing her defeat in 1903, kept
quiet about these facts, those who take an interest in the history of
their Party will take pains to ascertain the facts and ponder over their
significance.
On leaving the 1903 Congress Rosa Luxemburg's friends submitted the
following statement: ". . .We propose that point 7" (now point 9) "of the
draft program read as follows: Point 7. Institutions guaranteeing full
freedom of cultural development to all nations incorporated in the state"
(P. 390 of the Minutes.)
Thus, the Polish Marxists then propounded views on the national
question that were so vague that instead of self-determination they actu-
ally proposed the notorious "cultural-national autonomy," under another
name.
This sounds almost incredible, but unfortunately it is a fact. At the
Congress itself, although it was attended by five Bundists with five votes,
and three Caucasians with six votes, not counting Kostrov's consulting
voice, not a single vote was cast for the deletion of the point about self-
determination. Three votes were cast for the proposal to add to this point
"cultural-national autonomy" (in favour of Goldblatt's formula: "the
establishment of institutions guaranteeing to the nations complete freedom
of cultural development") and four votes for Lieber's formula ("the right
of nations to freedom in their cultural development").
Now that a Russian Liberal party, the Constitutional-Democratic
Party, has appeared on the scene, we know that in its program the political
self-determination of nations has been replaced by "cultural self-determina-
tion. "Thus, Rosa Luxemburg's Polish friends were so successful in "com-
bating" the nationalism of the P.P.S. that they proposed to substitute a
Liberal program for the Marxian program I And in the same breath they
accused our program of being opportunist; no wonder this accusation
was received with laughter in the Program Commission of the Second Con-
gress I
How was "self-determination" understood by the delegates at the
Second Congress, of whom, as we have seen, not a single one was opposed
to "self-determination of nations"?
The following three extracts from the minutes provide the answer:
"Martynov is of the opinion that the term 'self-determination' should
not be given a broad interpretation; it merely means the right of a nation
604 V. I. LENIN
to set itself up as a separate political entity and not regional self-govern*
ment." (P. 171.)
Martynov was a member of the Program Commission in which the argu»
ments of Rosa Luxemburg's friends were repudiated and ridiculed. Mar-
tynov was then "an Economist," a rabid opponent of Iskra; and had he
expressed an opinion which was not shared by the majority of the Program
Commission he would certainly have been repudiated.
Goldblatt, a Bundist, was the first to speak when the Congress, after the
Commission had finished its work, discussed point 8 (present point 9) of the
program.
Goldblatt said:
"Nothing can be said against the 'right to self-determination.'
When a nation is fighting for independence, it should not be opposed.
If Poland refuses to enter into legal marriage with Russia, she should
not be compelled to, as Plekhanov put it. I agree with this opinion
within these limits." (Pp. 175-76.)
Plekhanov did not speak at all on this subject at the full meeting of
the Congress. Goldblatt repeated what Plekhanov had said in the Program
Commission, where the "right to self-determination" had been explained
in a simple and detailed manner to mean the right to secession. Lieber,
who spoke after Goldblatt, remarked:
"Of course, if any nationality finds that it cannot live within the
frontiers of Russia, the Party will not place any obstacles in its way ."
(P. 176.)
The reader will see that at the Second Congress of the Party, which
adopted the program, there were no two opinions about self-determination
meaning "only" the right to secession. Even the Bundists assimilated this
truth at that time, and only in our deplorable times of continued counter-
revolution and all sorts of "apostasy" can we find people who, bold in their
ignorance, declare that the program is "vague." But before devoting
time to these sorry "quasi-Social-Democrats," let us first finish with the
attitude of the Poles to the program.
They came to the Second Congress (1903) declaring that unity was neces-
sary and urgent. But they left the Congress after their "reverse" in the Pro-
gram Commission, and their last word was their written statement, printed
in the minutes of the Congress, containing the above-mentioned proposals
to substitute cultural-national autonomy for self-determination*
In 1906 the Polish Marxists joined the Party, and neither upon joining
nor afterwards (neither at the Congress of 1907, nor at the conferences
of 1907 and 1908, nor at the plenum of 1910) did they once introduce a
single proposal to amend point 9 of the Russian program 1
This is a fact.
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATIOtf 606
And despite all phrases and assurances, this fact definitely proves that
Rosa Luxemburg's friends regarded this question as having been
settled by the debate in the Program Commission of the Second Congress
as well as by the decision of that Congress; that they tacitly acknowledged
their mistake and corrected it by joining the Party in 1906, after they had
left the Congress in 1903, without having once tried through Party channels,
to raise the question of amending point 9 of the program.
Rosa Luxemburg's article appeared over her signature in 1908— of
course, no one ever took it into his head to deny the right of Party writers
to criticize the program — and since this article was written not a single
6fficial body of the Polish Marxists has raised the question of revising
point 9.
Hence, Trotsky is rendering certain admirers of Rosa Luxemburg a very
clumsy service when he writes, in the name of the editors of Borba, in No.
2 of that publication (March 1914):
". . .The Polish Marxists consider that 'the right to national self-
determination* is entirely devoid of political content and should
be deleted from the program." (P. 25.)
The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy 1 Trotsky could
produce no proof except "private conversations" (i.e., simply gossip, on
which Trotsky always subsists) for classifying "Polish Marxists" in gener-
al as supporters of every article that Rosa Luxemburg writes. Trotsky
represented the "Polish Marxists" as people without honour and con-
science, incapable of respecting even their own convictions and the
program of their Party. Obliging Trotsky!
In 1903, when the representatives of the Polish Marxists left the Second
Congress because of the right to self-determination, Trotsky was entitled
to say that they considered that this right was devoid of content and should
be deleted from the program.
But after this the Polish Marxists joined the Party which possessed
such a program, and not once have they brought in a motion to amend it. *
Why did Trotsky withhold these facts from the readers of his journal?
Only because he finds it advantageous to speculate on provoking disagree-
ments between the Polish and the Russian opponents of Liquidatorism
and on deceiving the Russian workers on the question of the program.
Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question
relating to Marxism. He always manages to "creep into the chinks" of this
* We are informed that at the Summer Conference of the Russian Marxists
in 1913, the Polish Marxists attended with only a voice but no vote and did not
vote at all on the right to self-determination (to secession); they declared that
they were opposed to this right in general. Of course, they had a perfect right
to act in this way, and, as hitherto, to agitate in Poland against her secession.
But this is not quite what Trotsky is saying; for the Polish Marxists did not demand
the "deletion" of point 9 "from the program."
V. I. LENIN
or that difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At this mo-
ment he is in the company of the Bundists and the Liquidators. And these
gentlemen do not stand on ceremony as far as the Party is concerned.
Listen to the Bundist Liebmann.
"When, fifteen years ago," writes this gentleman, "the Russian
Social-Democrats included the point about the right of every nation-
ality to 'self-determination' in their program, everyone [!!] asked
himself: what does this fashionable — [!!] term really mean? No an-
swer was forthcoming [11], This word was left [11] enveloped in fog.
Indeed, it was difficult at the time to dissipate that fog. The time
had not yet come when this point could be made concrete — they
used to say at the time — let it remain enveloped in fog — [11] for the
time being and life itself will indicate what content is to be put into
this point."
Isn't this "ragamuffin" * mocking at the Party program magnificent?
And why is he mocking?
Only because he is a complete ignoramus who has never learned anything,
who has not even read anything on Party history, but who simply happened
to drop into a Liquidators t environment, where it is "the thing" to be
blase on the question of the Party and everything it stands for.
In Pomyalovsky's novel, a bursar brags of having "spat into the barrel
with sauerkraut."Messrs. the Bundists go even further .They put up the Lieb.
manns so that these gentlemen may publicly spit into their own barrel.
What do the Liebmanns care about the fact that an International Congress
has passed a decision, that at the Congress of their own Party two represent-
atives of their own Bund proved that they were quite able (and what
"severe" critics and determined enemies of Iskra they were!) to understand
the meaning of "self-determination" and even agreed to it? And would it not
be easier to dissolve the Party if the "Party writers" (don't laugh) treated
the history and the program of the Party in bursar fashion?
Here is a second "ragamuffin," Mr. Yurkevich of Dzvin (The Peal).
Mr. Yurkevich has evidently seen the minutes of the Second Congress, for
he cites Plekhanov's words, as repeated by Goldblatt, and shows that he
is aware of the fact that self-determination can only mean the right to
secession. This, however, does not prevent him from spreading slander
among the Ukrainian petty bourgeoisie about the Russian Marxists, alleg-
ing that they are in favour of the "state integrity" of Russia. (No. 7-8,
1913, p. 83, etc.) Of course, the Yurkeviches could not have invented a
better method than this of alienating the Ukrainian democrats from the
Great-Russian democrats. And such alienation is in line with the whole
* Ragamuffin — a character in Saltykov-Shchedrin's satire In Foreign Lands'^
the term here denotes shameless conduct. — Ed.
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION? 607
policy of the group of writers on Dzvin, who advocate the segregation of
the Ukrainian workers in a separate national organization 1*
It is quite appropriate, of course, for a group of nationalist philistines
who are splitting the ranks of the proletariat — and such precisely is the
objective role of Dzvin — to disseminate such hopeless confusion on the
national question. It goes without saying that the Yurkeviches and Lieb-
manns, who are "terribly" offended when they are called "near-Party men/*
do not say a word, not a single word, as to how they would like the problem
of the right of secession to be solved in the program.
Here is the third and principal "ragamuffin," Mr. Semkovsky, who in the
columns of a Liquidatorist newspaper, with a Great-Russian audience before
him, rails at point 9 of the program and at the same time declares that he
"for certain reasons does not approve of the proposal" to delete this point!!
This is incredible, but it is a fact.
In August 1912, the conference of the Liquidators officially raised the
national question. For a year and a half not a single article has appeared
on the question of point 9 except for the one written by Mr. Semkovsky*
And in this article the author repudiates the program, because "for
certain reasons" (is it a secret disease?) he "does not approve" of the pro-
posal to amend it!l We would lay a wager that it would be difficult to
find anywhere in the world similar examples of opportunism, and worse
than opportunism, of the renunciation of the Party, of its liquidation*
One instance will suffice to show what Semkovsky 's arguments are
like:
"What are we to do," he writes, "if the Polish proletariat desires
to fight side by side with the entire Russian proletariat, within the
limits of a single state, while the reactionary classes of Polish society,
on the contrary, desire to separate Poland from Russia and in
a referendum obtain a majority of votes in favour of secession?
Should we Russian Social-Democrats in the central parliament vote
together with our Polish comrades against secession, or — in order not
to violate the 'right to self-determination' — vote for secession?"*
(Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta [New Workers' Gazette], No 71.)
From this it is evident that Mr. Semkovsky does not even understand
what the discussion is about \ It did not occur to him that the right to seces-
sion presupposes the settlement of the question not by the central parlia-
ment, but by the parliament (diet, referendum, etc.) of the seceding region.
The childish perplexity over the question — "What are we to do'Vif
under democracy the majority is for reaction? — serves to screen the ques-
tion of real, actual, live politics, when both the Purishkeviches and the
* See particularly Mr. Yurkevich's preface to Mr. Lcvinsky V book Out-
line of the Development of the Ukrainian W or king-Class Movement in Galicia,
Kiev, 1914,
v. I. LENIN
Kokoshkins consider the very idea of secession as criminal! Probably,
the proletarians of all Russia ought not to fight the Purishkeviches and the
Kokoshkins today, but leave them alone and fight the reactionary classes
of Poland!
Such is the incredible nonsense that is written in the organ of the Li-
quidators, of which Mr. L. Martov is one of the ideological leaders, the
same L. Martov who drafted the program and got it carried in 1903, and
even subsequently wrote in favour of the right of secession. Apparently
X. Martov is now arguing according to the rule:
No clever man required there;
Better send Read,
And I shall wait and see.*
He sends Read-Semkovsky, and allows our program to be distorted and
endlessly confused in a daily paper before new readers, who are unacquaint-
ed with our program.
Yes, Liquidatorism has gone a long way — even very many prominent
ex-Social-Democrats have not a trace of Party spirit left in them.
Rosa Luxemburg cannot, of course, be put on a par with the Liebmanns,
Yurkeviches and Semkovskys, but the fact that it is precisely people of
this kind who seize upon her mistake shows with particular clarity the
opportunism she has lapsed into.
X. CONCLUSION
To sum up:
JFrom the point of view of the theory of Marxism in general the question
<t>T the right of self-determination presents no difficulties. No one can seri-
ously dispute the London decision of 1896, or the fact that self-determina-
tion implies only the right to secession, or the fact that the formation of
independent national states is the tendency of all bourgeois-democratic
revolutions.
The difficulty is created to a certain extent by the fact that in Russia
the proletariat of both oppressed and oppressing nations are fighting and
must fight side by side. The task is to preserve the unity of the class strug-
gle of the proletariat for Socialism, to resist all the bourgeois and Black-
Hundred nationalist influences. Among the oppressed nations the separate
organization of the proletariat as an independent party sometimes leads
to such a bitter struggle against the nationalism of the respective nation
that the perspective becomes distorted and the nationalism of the oppres-
sing nation is forgotten.
* A verse from a soldiers 'song of the period of the Crimean War. An allusion
to the unsuccessful operations of the Russian troops commanded by General
Read.— Ed.
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 609
But this distortion of the perspective cannot last long. The experience of
the joint struggle of the proletarians of various nations has demonstrated
only too plainly that we must formulate political questions not from the
"Cracow," but from the all-Russian point of view. And in all-Russian
politics it is the Purishkeviches and the Kokoshkins who rule. Their ideas
are predominant, their persecution of alien races for. "separatism," for their
thinking about secession, are being preached and practised in the Duma,
in the schools, in the churches, in the barracks, and in hundreds and thou-
sands of newspapers. It is this Great-Russian poison of nationalism that
is contaminating the entire all- Russian political atmosphere. It is the mis-,,
fortune of a nation, which, in subjugating other nations, is strengthening
reaction throughout Russia. The memories of 1849 and 1863 form a living
political tradition, which, unless great storms sweep the country, threatens
to hamper every democratic and especially every Social-Democratic move-
ment for many decades.
There can be no doubt that, however natural the point of view of certain
Marxists of the oppressed nations (whose "misfortune" is sometimes that
the masses of the population are blinded by the idea of "their" national
liberation) may appear sometimes, in reality the objective alignment of
class forces in Russia makes refusal to advocate the right of self-determina-
tion tantamount to the worst opportunism, to the contamination of the
proletariat with the ideas of the Kokoshkins. And in substance, these ideas
are the ideas and the policy of the Purishkeviches.
Therefore, while Rosa Luxemburg's point of view could at first be ex-
cused as being specifically Polish, "Cracow" narrow-mindedness,* at the
present time, when nationalism and, above all governmental Great- Rus-
sian nationalism, has grown stronger everywhere, when politics are being
shaped by this Great-Russian nationalism, such narrow-mindedness becomes
inexcusable. In fact, it is seized upon by the opportunists of all na-
tions who fight shy of the idea of "storms" and "leaps," believe that the
bourgeois-democratic revolution is over, and yearn for the Liberalism of
the Kokoshkins.
Great-Russian nationalism, like any other nationalism, passes through
various phases, according to the classes that are supreme in the bourgeois
country at the time. Before 1905 we knew almost exclusively national
reactionaries. After the revolution National Liberals arose in our country.
In our country this is virtually the position adopted both by the Oc-
tobrists and by the Cadets (Kokoshkin), i.e., by the whole of the present-
day bourgeoisie.
* It is easy to understand that the recognition by the Marxists of the whole
of Russia, and first and foremost by the Great Russians, of the right of nations
to secede in no way precludes agitation against secession by Marxists of a partic-
ular oppressed nation, just as the recognition of the right to divorce does not
preclude agitation against divorce in a particular case. We think, therefore, that
an ever- increasing number of Polish Marxists will laugh at the non-existent "con-
tradiction" which is now being "hashed up" by Semkovsky and Trotsky.
39-685
610 V, I. LENIN
And later on, Great-Russian National Democrats will inevitably ap-
pear. Mr. Peshekhonov, one of the founders of the "Popular Socialist**
Party, expressed this point of view when (in the issue of Russkoye Bogatstvo
[Russian Wealth} for August 1906) he appealed for caution in regard
to the nationalist prejudices of the peasant. However much others may
slander us Bolsheviks .and declare that we "idealize" the peasant, we al-
ways have made and always will make a clear distinction between peas-
ant intelligence and peasant prejudice, between peasant strivings for
democracy and opposition to Purishkevich, and peasant strivings to make
*peace with the priest and the landlord.
Even now, and probably for a fairly long time to come, proletarian;
democracy must reckon with the nationalism of the Great-Russian peasants
(not in the sense of making concessions to it, but in the sense of combating;
it).* The awakening of nationalism among the oppressed nations, which
became so pronounced after 1905 (let us recall, say, the group of "Auton-
omists-Federalists" in the First Duma, the growth of the Ukrainian
movement, of the Moslem movement, etc.), will inevitably cause the inten-
sification of nationalism among the Great- Russian petty bourgeoisie in*
town and country. The slower the democratization of Russia, the more
persistent, brutal and bitter will be national persecution and quarrelling;
among the bourgeoisie of the various nations. The particularly reaction-
ary spirit of the Russian Purishkeviches will at the same time engender
(and strengthen) "separatist" tendencies among the various oppressed
nationalities which sometimes enjoy far greater freedom in the neighbour-
ing states.
Such a state of affairs sets the proletariat of Russia a twofold or, rath-
er, a two-sided task: first, to fight against all nationalism and, above all,,
against Great- Russian nationalism; to recognize not only complete equal-
ity of rights for all nations in general, but also equality of rights as regards,
forming an independent state, i.e., the right of nations to self-determina-
tion, to secession. And second, precisely in the interests of the successful
struggle against the nationalism of all nations in any form, it sets the task
* It would be interesting to trace the changes that take place in Polish national-
ism, for example, in its process of transformation from aristocratic nationalism
into bourgeois nationalism and then into peasant nationalism. Ludwig Bernhard^
in his book Das polnisohe Oemeinwesen impreussischenStaat [The Polish Commun-
ity in the Prussian State} (there is a Russian translation), sharing the view of
a German Kokoshkin, describes a very characteristic phenomenon: the formation
of a sort of "peasant republic" by the Poles in Germany in the form of a closer
alliance of the various co-operatives and other associations of the Polish peasants
in their struggle for nationality, for religion, for "Polish" land. German oppres-
sion has welded the Poles together, segregated them, first awakening the nation-
alism of the aristocracy, then of the bourgeois, and finally of the peasant masses-
(especially after the campaign the Germans inaugurated in 1873 against the Polish
language in schools). Things are moving in the same direction in Russia, and
not only in regard to Poland.
THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION 611
of preserving the unity of the proletarian struggle and of the proletarian
organizations, of amalgamating these organizations into an international
association, in spite of the bourgeois strivings for national segregation.
Complete equality of rights for all nations; the right of nations to self-
determination; the amalgamation of the workers of all nations — this is
the national program that Marxism, the experience of the whole world,
and the experience of Russia, teaches the workers.
This article was already set up when I received No. 3 of Nasha Rdbo-
chaya Oazeta (Our Workers' Gazette), where Mr. VI. Kossovsky writes as
follows about the recognition of the right of self-determination for all
nations:
"Taken over mechanically from the resolution of the First
Congress of the Party (1898), which in turn had borrowed it from
the decisions of International Socialist Congresses, it, as is evident
from the debate, was given the same meaning at the 1903 Congress
as was put into it by the Socialist International, viz.9 political
self-determination, i.e., the self-determination of nations in the
direction of political independence. Thus, the formula: national
self-determination, which implies the right to territorial separation,
does not affect the question of how national relations within a
given state organism should be regulated for nationalities that cannot
or have no desire to leave the present state."
It is evident from this that Mr. VI. Kossovsky has had in his posses-
sion the minutes of the Second Congress of 1903 and perfectly well under-
stands the real (and only) meaning of the term self-determination. Compare
this with the fact that the editors of the Bund newspaper Zeit (The Times)
puts up Mr. Liebmann to jeer at the program and to declare that it
is vague 1! Queer "party" ethics among these Bundists. . . . Why Kossovsky
declares that the Congress took over the principle of self-determination
mechanically, "Allah alone knows." Some people "want to object," but
how, why and wherefore, they do not know.
First Published in Prosveshcheniye
Nos. 4, 5 and 6 for 1914
39*
OBJECTIVE DATA
ON THE STRENGTH OF THE DIFFERENT TRENDS
JN THE WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT
For the class-conscious workers there is no more important task than
that of knowing their class movement, its nature> its aims and objects,
its conditions and practical forms, for the whole strength of the working-
class movement lies in its political intelligence, and in its mass character.
At every step in its development, capitalism increases the number of pro-
letarians, of wage workers, rallies, organises and enlightens them, and in
this way prepares the class force that must inevitably march towards
its goal.
The program of the Marxists and their decisions on tactics, as constant-
ly set forth and explained in the press, help to inculcate in the masses of
the workers a knowledge of the nature, aims and objects of the movement.
The conflict between the various trends in the working-class movement
of Russia have deep class roots. The two *etrends" which are fighting
Marxism (Pravda-ism) in the working-class movement of Russia and
which deserve (because of their mass form and of their roots in history)
to be called "trends," i.e., Narodism and Liquidatorism, express the in-
fluence of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat. This has been explained
many times by the Marxists and recognized in a number of decisions they
have adopted in relation to the Narodniks (the fight against whom has
been going on for thirty years) and in relation to the Liquidators (the his*
tory of Liquidatorism goes back about twenty years, for Liquidatorism
is the direct continuation of "Economism" and Menshevism).
More and more objective data are now accumulating on the strength of
the different trends in the working-class movement of Russia. Every
effort must be made to collect, verify and study these objective data on
the conduct and moods not of individuals or groups, but of the masses ,
data taken from different hostile newspapers, data that can be verified by
any literate person.
Only with the help of such data can one learn and make a study of the
movement of one's class. One of the gravest, if not the gravest, defects
(or crimes against the working class) of the Narodniks and Liquidators,
as well as of the various coteries of intellectuals such as the "Vperyod-
ites," Plekhanovites and Trotskyites, is their subjectivism. At every step
612
OBJECTIVE DATA
613
they try to pass off their desires, their "opinions," their estimation of the
situation and their "plans" as the will of the workers, as the needs of
the working-class movement. When they talk about "unity," for example,
they majestically ignore the experience acquired in creating the genuine
unity of the majority of the class-conscious workers of Russia in the course
of two-and-a-half years, from the beginning of 1912 to the middle of 1914.
Let us then tabulate the available objective data on the strength of
the different trends in the working-class movement. Let those who believe
subjective appraisals and promises do so if they please, let them go to
the "coteries." We, however, shall merely invite those who desire to study
objective figures to do so. Here are the figures:
Per
cent
1
?ravda-
ites
Liqui-
dator-
ists
Pravdo-
ites
Liquida-
torists
Left
Narod-
niks
State Duma Elections:
1. No. of deputies f II Duma 1907 . .
elected by work- { III " 1907-12
ers' curia 1 IV " 1912 . .
11
4
6
12
4
3
47
50
67
53
50 1
33 /
boycott
No. of Workers' Groups which Collected
Funds
2. No. of collec- /
tions by workers' 1 1Q12
fion
89
groups for St. | 1913
Ou\j
21 fti
661
76 9
23.1
9£1
Petersburg news- to May 13, 1914 .
, J.O1
2,873
671
1 \J» £»
81.1
18.' 9
£O-t
524
papers I
Election of Workers9 Representatives to
Insurance Boards
3. No. of representatives elected to Ail-
Russian Insurance Board
47
10
82.4
17.6
n— 2?
4. Ditto Metropolitan Insurance Board .
TT 1
37
7
84.1
15.9
— &t
4
Signatures to Resolutions in Favour of
Each of the Duma Groups
5- No. of signatures published in both
newspapers in favour of the "six"
(Pravda-ites) and for the "seven"
(Liquidators)
6722
2,985
69.2
30.8
Connection with Workers9 Groups
, 1 uu
6. No. of communications with various
contributions from workers* groups
to either of the Duma Groups (Oct.
1913 to June 6, 1914)
1.295
215
85.7
14.3
614
V. I. LENIN
Pravda-
ites
Liqui-
dator-
iBts
Per cent
Left
Napod-
niks
Pravda-
ites
Liquida-
torists
Circulation of St. Petersburg Newspapers
7. No. of copies printed (figures collect-
ed and published by E. Vandervelde).
40,000
16,000
71.4
28.6
12,000
(Stimes
Press Abroad
a week)
8. No. of issues of leading newspapers
published after August (1912) Confer-
ence of Liquidators to July 1914 .
5
0
—
—
9
9. No. of references in these issues to
non-public organizations (one local-
ity counted as one reference) . . .
44
0
—
—
21
Dependence on the Bourgeoisie
10. Funds Contributed to St. Peters-
burg newspapers (from January 1 to
May 13, 1914). Percentage of contri-
butions from non-workers
—
—
13
60
60
11. No. of financial reports published
in the newspapers during entire
period
3
1
__
.-^
?(Q?}
12. Percentage of above reports showing
* vv* /
deficits covered from unstated, i.e.,
bourgeois sources
—
0
100
?
13. Funds passing through the hands
of either of the Duma groups (from
October 1913 to June 6, 1914). Per-
centage of funds obtained from
non-workers
6
46
14. No. of items of correspondence tacit-
ly passed off as coming from work-
ers when actually taken from bour-
geois newspapers without indicating
source
—
6 (in two issues,
0
Nos. 17 and 19 of
Trade Unions
15. No. of trade unions in St. Peters-
Nouaya
RabochayaGazeta)
burg in which majority of members
(judging by majority on executive
boards) sympathize with respective
trends
141/.*
3V.*
0
* In one union the Pravda-itts and Liquidators had an equal number of
supporters.
OBJECTIVE DATA 615
First of all we shall briefly explain the above figures and then draw
the conclusions that follow from them.
It will be most convenient to make the explanations point by point.
Point 1. No figures showing the number of electors and delegates elected are
available. Whoever complains about our using "curia" figures simply makes
himself ridiculous, for no other figures are available. The German Social-
Democrats measure their successes under the Bismarck franchise law which
excludes women and thereby creates a "male" curia!
Point 2. The number of workers ' groups which pay and not only "sign
resolutions" is the most reliable and true criterion not only of the strength
of the trend, but also of its state of organization and its Party spirit.
That is why the Liquidators and the "coteries," betray such subjective
dislike for this criterion.
The Liquidators argued: We have, in addition, the Jewish and the Geor-
gian newspapers, but Pravda stands alone. This is not true. Firstly, the
Esthonian and Lithuanian newspapers are Pravda-ite. Secondly, if we take
the provinces, is it permissible to forget Moscow? The Moscow workers'
newspaper, during 1913, rallied, united 390 workers' groups (Bdbochy
[The Worker] No. 1, p. 19), whereas the Jewish newspaper Zeit, from issue
No. 2 (December 29, 1912) to June 1, 1914, united 296 workers' groups
(of these 190 were united up to March 20, 1914, and 106 from March 20
to June 1, 1914). Thus, Moscow alone more than "covered" the Liquida-
tors' subjective reference to Zeitl
We call on the Georgian and Armenian comrades to collect data on
the Liquidators' newspapers in the Caucasus. How many workers' groups
are there? Objective data covering all aspects are needed.
Mistakes in counting the groups may have been made, but only in in-
dividual cases. We invite everybody to verify the figures and correct them.
Points 3 and 4 need no explanation. It would be desirable to initiate
an enquiry for the purpose of collecting new data from the provinces.
Point 5. The 2,985 Liquidatorist signatures include 1,086 Bundist
and 719 Caucasian signatures. It is desirable that the local comrades should
verify these figures.
Point 6. The treasurers of the two groups publish reports of all funds
each group receives for various objects. These figures serve as an exact
and objective index of each group's contacts with the workers.
Point 7. Circulation of newspapers. The figures were collected and
published by E. Vandervelde but hushed up by the Liquidators and the
Liberals. (Kievskaya Mysl.) "Subjectivism." It is desirable that fuller
figures be collected, if only for one month.
Points 8 and 9. Here we have an objective illustration of the Liquida-
tors' renunciation of the "underground," t.e., of the Party. But from Jan-
uary 1 to May 13, 1914, the Pravda-itcs received from abroad Rbls.
49.79 (one-fourth of one per cent) and the Liquidators, received Rbls.
1,709.17 (fourteen per cent). Don't say "I can't," say: "I won't"!
616 V. I. LENIN
Points 10 to 14. These are objective evidence of the dependence of the
Liquidators and Narodniks on the bourgeoisie, evidence of their bourgeois
character. Subjectively, the Liquidators and Narodniks are "Socialists"
and "Social-Democrats." Objectively, both as regards the substance of
their ideas as well as the experience of the mass movement, they are groups
of bourgeois intellectuals trying to sever the minority of the workers
from the workers' party.
We particularly draw our readers' attention to the way in which the
Liquidators fake workers' correspondence. This is an unprecedented, down-
right fraud! Let all Marxists in the localities expose this fraud and collect
objective data (cf. Trudovaya Pravda No. 12, June 11, 1914).
Point 15. These figures are particularly important and ought to be sup-
plemented and verified by a separate enquiry. We have taken the figures
from Sputnik Rabochevo, Priboy Publishers, St. Petersburg, 1914. Among
the unions included in the Liquidators' list were the Clerks' Union, the
Engineers' Draftsmen's Union and the Druggist Employees' Union (at
the last election of the Executive of the Printers' Union on April 27,
1914, half the members of the Executive and more than half of the alter-
nate members elected were Pravda-ites) . The Narodnik list of unions in-
cludes the Bakers ' Union and the Case-makers ' Union. Aggregate member-
ship about 22,000.
Of the thirteen unions in Moscow, ten are Pravda-ite and three
indefinite, although they are closer to the Pravda-ites than to any other
trend. There is not a single Liquidatorist or Narodnik union in Moscow.
The conclusions to be drawn from these objective data is that Pravda-ism
is the only Marxist, proletarian trend, really independent of the bourgeoi-
sie, and has organized, united, over four-fifths of the workers (in 1914
81.1 per cent of the workers' groups as compared with 18.9 of the Liqui-
dators). Liquidatorism and Narodism are undoubtedly bourgeois -demo-
cratic and not working-class trends.
The experience of the mass movement during 1912, 1913 and half
of 1914 have entirely and brilliantly confirmed the correctness of the pro-
gram, tactical and organizational ideas, decisions and line of the Pravda-
ites. Convinced that we are on the right road, we should draw the strength
for even more intensive efforts.
Published in Trudovaya Pravda No. 25,
July 9 [June 26], 1914
THE PERIOD
OF THE IMPERIALIST WAR
THE SECOND REVOLUTION
IN RUSSIA
THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS AND THE WAR
The European war, for which the governments and the bourgeois par-
ties of all countries have been making preparations for decades, has broken
out. The growth of armaments, the extreme sharpening of the struggle
for markets in the epoch of the latest, the imperialist, stage of capitalist
development in the advanced countries, and the dynastic interests of the
most backward East-European monarchies were inevitably bound to lead
and have led, to this war. The seizure of territory and the subjugation of
foreign nations, the ruin of a competing nation and the plunder of its
wealth, the diversion of the attention of the working masses from the in-
ternal political crises in Russia, Germany, England and other countries,
the division of the workers, fooling them by nationalism, and the extermi-
nation of their vanguard with the object of weakening the revolutionary
movement of the proletariat — such is the only real meaning, substance
and significance of the present war.
The first duty of the Social-Democrats is to disclose this true meaning
of the war and ruthlessly to expose the falsehood, sophistry and "patriot-
ic" phrasemongering spread by the ruling classes, the landlords and the
bourgeoisie, in defence of the war.
The German bourgeoisie heads one group of belligerent nations. It is
fooling the working class and the labouring masses by asserting that it
is waging war in defence of the fatherland, freedom and civilization, for
the liberation of the peoples oppressed by tsardom, for the destruction of
reactionary tsardom. But, as a matter of fact, this bourgeoisie, which
servilely grovels before the Prussian Junkers, headed by Wilhelm II, has
always been a most faithful ally of tsardom and an enemy of the revolu-
tionary movement of the workers and peasants of Russia. In reality, what-
ever the outcome of the war may be, this bourgeoisie will, together with
the Junkers, exert every effort to support the tsarist monarchy against
a revolution in Russia.
The German bourgeoisie has in reality launched a predatory campaign
against Serbia with the object of sub jugating her and throttling the nation-
al revolution of the Southern Slavs, at the same time directing the bulk
of its military forces against the freer countries, Belgium and France,
in order to plunder its richer competitors. Although it is spreading the
619
620 V. I. LENIN
fable that it is waging a defensive war, the German bourgeoisie, in real-
ity, chose the moment which in its opinion was most propitious for war,
taking advantage of its latest improvements in military technique and
forestalling the new armaments that had already been planned and decided
upon by Russia and France.
The other group of belligerent nations is headed by the British and
French bourgeoisie, which is fooling the working class and the labouring
masses by asserting that it is waging a war for the defence of their native
lands, freedom and civilization from the militarism and despotism of
Germany. But, as a matter of fact, this bourgeoisie has long been using its
billions to hire the armies of Russian tsardom, the most reactionary
and barbarous monarchy in Europe, and to prepare them for an attack on
Germany.
In reality, the object of the struggle of the British and French bourgeoi-
sie is to seize the German colonies and to ruin a competing nation which
is distinguished for its more rapid economic development. And, in pur-
suit of this noble aim, the "advanced" democratic nations are helping
the savage tsarist regime to strangle Poland, the Ukraine, etc., and to
throttle the revolution in Russia more thoroughly.
Neither of the two groups of belligerent countries lags behind the other
in robbery, atrocities and the infinite brutalities of war; but in order to
fool the proletariat and distract its attention from the only real war of
liberation, namely, a civil war against the bourgeoisie both of "its own"
and of "foreign" countries, in order to further this lofty aim, the bourgeoi-
sie of each country is trying with the help of lying talk about patriotism
to extol the significance of its "own" national war and to assert that it
is not striving to vanquish the enemy for the sake of plunder and the seizure
of territory, but for the sake of "liberating" all other peoples, except
its own.
But the more zealously the governments and the bourgeoisie of all coun-
tries strive to divide the workers and to pit them against each other, and
the more ferociously they employ martial law and military censorship
(which even now, in time of war, are applied more stringently against the
"internal" than against the foreign enemy) for this lofty purpose, the more
urgently is it the duty of the class-conscious proletariat to preserve its
class solidarity, its internationalism, its Socialist convictions from the
orgy of the chauvinism of the "patriotic" bourgeois cliques of all countries.
The renunciation of this task would mean the renunciation by the class-
conscious workers of all their emancipatory and democratic, not to men-
tion Socialist, aspirations.
It is with a feeling of deepest chagrin that we have to record that the
Socialist parties of the leading European countries have not discharged
this duty, while the behaviour of the leaders of these parties — particu-
larly of the German — borders on the downright betrayal of the cause of
Socialism. At this moment of supreme historical importance to the world,
THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS AND THE WAR 621
the majority of the leaders of the present, the Second (1889-1914), Social-
ist International are trying to substitute nationalism for Socialism.
Owing to their behaviour, the workers ' parties of these countries did not
oppose the criminal conduct of the governments but called upon the work-
ing class to identify its position with that of the imperialist governments.
The leaders of the International committed an act of treachery towards
Socialism when they voted for war credits, when they seconded the chau-
vinist ("patriotic") slogans of the bourgeoisie of their "own" countries,
when they justified and defended the war, when they entered the bourgeois
Cabinets of belligerent countries, etc., etc. The most influential Socialist
leaders, and the most influential organs of the Socialist press of present-day
Europe, hold chauvinistic bourgeois and liberal views, and not Socialist
views. The responsibility for disgracing Socialism in this way rests
primarily on the German Social-Democrats, who were the strongest
and most influential party in the Second International. But neither can
one justify the French Socialists, who accepted ministerial posts in the
government of the very bourgeoisie which betrayed its country and allied
itself with Bismarck to crush the Commune.
The German and Austrian Social-Democrats try to justify their support
of the war by arguing that they are thereby fighting Russian tsardom.
We, the Russian Social-Democrats, declare that we consider such a justi-
fication sheer sophistry. During the past few years, the revolutionary move-
ment against tsardom in our country has again assumed tremendous
proportions. This movement has always been led by the Russian working
class. In the past few years, political strikes involving millions of workers
were held, demanding the overthrow of tsardom and a democratic repub-
lic. On the very eve of the war, Poincare, the President of the French
Republic, while on his visit to Nicholas II, had the opportunity to see bar-
ricades in the streets of St. Petersburg built by the hands of Russian work*
ers. The Russian proletariat has not shrunk from any sacrifice to rid hu-
manity of the disgrace of the tsarist monarchy. But we must say that if any-
thing can, under certain conditions, delay the fall of tsardom, if anything
can help tsardom in its struggle against the whole democracy of Rus-
sia, it is the present war, which has placed the moneybags of the British,
French and Russian bourgeoisie at the disposal of tsardom for its reaction-
ary aims. And if anything can hinder the revolutionary struggle of the
Russian working class against tsardom, it is the behaviour of the German
and Austrian Social-Democratic leaders, which the chauvinist press of
Russia is continually holding up to us as an example.
Even if we assume that German Social-Democracy was so weak that it
was compelled to refrain from all revolutionary action, even then it should
not have joined the chauvinist camp, it should not have taken steps which
caused the Italian Socialists to declare with justice that the leaders of
the German Social-Democrats were dishonouring the banner of the prole*
tarian International.
622 V. I. LENIN
~ Our Party, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, has borne,,
and will yet bear, great sacrifices in connection with the war. The whole
of our legal labour press has been suppressed. The majority of the labour
unions have been closed, a large number of our comrades have been arrest* ,
ed and exiled. But our parliamentary representatives — the Russian Social-
Democratic Labour Group in the State Duma — considered it to be their
imperative Socialist duty not to vote for the war credits and even to walk
out of the Duma, in order the more energetically to express their protest;
they considered it their duty to brand the policy of the European govern-
ments as an imperialist one. And notwithstanding the fact that the oppres- '
sion of the tsar Js government has increased tenfold, our comrades, the work-
ers in Russia, are already publishing their first illegal manifestos against
the war and thus doing their duty to democracy and the International*
While the representatives of revolutionary Social-Democracy, in the
person of the minority of the German Social-Democrats and the best
Social-Democrats in the neutral countries, are experiencing a burning,
sense of shame over this collapse of the Second International;* while
voices of Socialists are being raised both in England and in France against
the chauvinism of the majority of the Social-Democratic parties; while
the opportunists, as represented, for instance, by the German Socialist.
Monthly (SozMistiscke Monatehefte), which has long held a national-
liberal position, are justly celebrating their victory over European Social-
ism— the worst possible service to the proletariat is being rendered by
those who vacillate between opportunism and revolutionary Social-De-
mocracy (like the "Centre" in the German Social-Democratic Party), by
those who attempt to ignore the collapse of the Second International or
to cover it up with diplomatic talk.
Quite the contrary, this collapse must be frankly admitted and its
causes understood in order to be able to build a new and more lasting
Socialist unity of the workers of all countries.
The opportunists have nullified the decisions of the Stuttgart, Copenha-
gen and Basle Congresses, which made it binding on the Socialists of all
countries to fight chauvinism under all conditions, which made it binding
on Socialists to retort to every war begun by the bourgeoisie and the gov-
ernments ,by intense propaganda for civil war and for social revolution.
The collapse of the Second International is the collapse of opportunism,
which grew out of the peculiarities of a now past (the so-called "peace-
ful") historical epoch, and which in recent years has practically come to
dominate the International. The opportunists have long been preparing
the ground for this collapse by rejecting Socialist revolution and substitut-
ing for it bourgeois reformism; by repudiating the class struggle with
' * Lenin has in view the declaration of September 10, 1914 made by Karl
Liebknecht, Franz Mehring, Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin which was pub-
lished on October 30th and 31st in the Swiss press. — Ed.
THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS AMD THE WAR 623
its inevitable transformation into civil war at certain moments, and by
preaching class collaboration; by preaching bourgeois chauvinism under
the guise of patriotism and defence of the fatherland, and ignoring or re*
pudiating the fundamental truth of Socialism, long ago expressed in The
Communist Manifesto, namely, that the workingmen have no country;
by confining themselves in their struggle against militarism to a senti-
mental, philistine point of view, instead of recognising the need for a rev-
olutionary war of the proletarians of all countries against the bourgeoi-
sie of all countries; by converting the necessary utilization of bourgeois
parliamentarism and bourgeois legality into a fetish and forgetting that
illegal forms of organization and agitation are obligatory in times of crises.
That natural "supplement" of opportunism — one equally bourgeois and
hostile to the proletarian, i.e., the Marxist, point of view — namely, the
anarcho-syndicalist trend, has been marked by a no less shame-
ful smugness in seconding the slogans of chauvinism in the present
crisis.
It is impossible to carry out the tasks of Socialism at the present time,
it is impossible to achieve a real international unity of the workers, with-
out radically breaking with opportunism and explaining to the masses
the inevitability of its bankruptcy.
It must be the prime task of the Social-Democrats in every country
to fight the chauvinism of their own country. In Russia the bourgeois
liberals (the "Constitutional-Democrats") have been wholly, and the
Narodniks— down to the Socialist- Revolutionaries and the "Right"
Social-Democrats — partly infected by this chauvinism. (In particular,
it is essential to stigmatize the chauvinist utterances of E. Smirnov,
P.Maslov andG. Plekhanov, for example, utterances which have been
taken up and widely utilized by the bourgeois "patriotic" press.)
Under present conditions, it is impossible to determine, from the stand-
point of the international proletariat, the defeat of which of the two groups
of belligerent nations would be the lesser evil for Socialism. But for us,
the Russian Social-Democrats, there cannot be the slightest doubt that
from the standpoint of the working class and of the labouring masses of
all the nations of Russia, the lesser evil would be the defeat of the tsarist
monarchy, the most reactionary and barbarous of governments, which
is oppressing the greatest number of nations and the largest mass of the
population of Europe and Asia.
The immediate political slogan of the Social-Democrats of Europe
must be the formation of a republican United States of Europe. * But in
* "The demand to set up a United States of Europe, in the form advanced
in the Manifesto of the Central Committee — coupled with the call to overthrow
the Russian, Austrian and German monarchies — differs from the pacifist inter-
pretation of this slogan by Kautsky and others. No. 44 of the Central Organ of
our Party, the Sotsial-Demokrat, contains an editorial article in which the 'United
States of Europe' slogan is proved to be economically fallacious. This is either
^24 V. L LENIN
<contrast to the bourgeoisie, which is ready to "promise" anything in or.
der to draw the proletariat into the general current of chauvinism, the
Social-Democrats will explain that this slogan is utterly false and sense-
less without the revolutionary overthrow of the German, Austrian and
Russian monarchies.
In Russia, in view of the fact that this country is the most backward
and has not yet completed its bourgeois revolution, the task of the So-
cial-Democrats is, as heretofore, to achieve the three fundamental con-
ditions for consistent democratic reform, viz., a democratic republic
(with complete equality and self-determination for all nations), confisca-
tion of the landed estates, and an 8-hour day. But the war has placed the
slogan of Socialist revolution on the order of the day in all the advanced
countries, and this slogan becomes the more urgent, the more the bur-
dens of war press upon the shoulders of the proletariat, and the more ac-
tive its role must become in the restoration of Europe after the horrors of
the present "patriotic" barbarism amidst the gigantic technical progress
of big capitalism. The fact that the bourgeoisie is using wartime legisla-
tion to completely gag the proletariat makes it absolutely necessary for
the latter to create illegal forms of agitation and organization. Let the
opportunists "preserve" the legal organizations at the price of betraying
their convictions; the revolutionary Social-Democrats will utilize the or-
ganizational training and connections of the working class to create ille-
gal forms of fighting for Socialism that are suitable for an epoch of crisis,
and to unite the workers not with the chauvinist bourgeoisie of their
various countries, but with the workers of all countries. The proletarian
International has not perished and will not perish. In spite of all obsta-
cles the worker masses will create a new International. The present triumph
of opportunism will be shortlived. The greater the sacrifices the war im-
poses, the clearer will it become to the mass of the workers that the oppor-
tunists have betrayed the workers' cause and that the weapons must be
turned against the government and the bourgeoisie of every country.
The only correct proletarian slogan is the transformation of the present
imperialist war into a civil war; it was indicated by the experience of the
Commune and outlined by the Basle resolution (1912), and it logically
follows from all the conditions of an imperialist war among highly devel-
a demand, unachievable under capitalism, which purports to establish a planned
system of world economy and the division of colonies, spheres of influence and
so forth among individual countries. Or else — it is a reactionary slogan, implying
a temporary alliance between the great powers of Europe the better to oppress
the colonies and plunder Japan and America which are developing much more
rapidly than they are." (This note which was appended by the editorial board of
the Sotaial-Demokrat to the Manifesto of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.
on the war, published in August-September 1915, was written by Lenin. The
editorial in No. 44 of the Sotaial-Demokrat mentioned in the note was written
by Lenin and entitled "On the United States of Europe Slogan" — sec this volume
pp. 630-633.— Ed.
THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS AND THE WAR v 625
oped bourgeois countries. However difficult such a transformation may
appear at any given moment, Socialists will never relinquish systematic,
persistent and undeviating preparatory work in this direction once war
has become a fact.
Only in this way can the proletariat shake off its dependence on the
chauvinist bourgeoisie, and, in one form or another, more or less rapidly,
take decisive steps towards the real freedom of nations and towards So-
cialism.
Long live the international fraternity of the workers against the chau-
vinism and patriotism of the bourgeoisie of all countries 1
Long live a proletarian International, freed from opportunism 1
Central Committee of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party
Sotsial-Demokrat No. 33,
November 1, 1914
40—685
THE NATIONAL PRIDE OF THE GREAT RUSSIANS
How many are now talking, arguing and shouting about nationality,,
about the fatherland 1 Liberal and radical Cabinet Ministers in England,,
a multitude of "advanced" publicists in France (who turn out to be in
complete agreement with the reactionary publicists), a host of official,
Cadet and progressive (including several Narodnik and "Marxist") scribes
in Russia — all in a thousand different keys laud the freedom and indepen-
dence of their "country," the grandeur of the principle of national indepen-
dence. It is difficult to distinguish here, where the venal eulogizer of the
hangman Nicholas Romanov, or of the torturer of Negroes and the inhabi-
tants of India, ends, and where the petty bourgeois who, owing to stupidity
or spinelessness, is swimming "with the stream, "begins. Nor is that im-
portant. We see a very wide and very deep ideological trend, the roots
of which are very firmly connected with the interests of Messrs, the land-
lords and capitalists of the Great Power nations. On the propaganda of
ideas advantageous to these classes scores and hundreds of millions are
spent every year: by no means a small mill, which takes its waters from
all sources, from the convinced chauvinist Menshikov to chauvinists due
to opportunism or spinelessness like the Plekhanovs, Maslovs, Rubano-
viches, Smirnovs, Kropotkins and Burtsevs.
Let us Great- Russian Social-Democrats also try to define our attitude
towards this ideological trend. It would be indecent for us representatives
of a Great Power nation in far eastern Europe, and a good share of Asia,
to forget the enormous significance of the national question — particularly
in a country which is justly called the "prison of nations" — at a time when
it is precisely in far eastern Europe and in Asia that capitalism is rousing
a number of "new" big and small nations to life and consciousness; at a
moment when the tsarist monarchy has placed under arms millions of
Great Russians and "aliens" for the purpose of "deciding" a number of
national questions in the interests of the Council of the United Nobility
and of the Guchkovs and Krestovnikovs, Dolgorukovs, Kutlers and
Rodichevs.
Is the sense of national pride alien to us, Great- Russian, class-con-
scious proletarians? Of course not I We love our language and our country >
we are doing more than anybody to raise her toiling masses (i.e., nine-
626
THE NATIONAL PRIDE OF THE GREAT RUSSIANS 627
tenths of her population) to the level of the conscious life of democrats and
Socialists. It pains us more than anybody to see and feel the outrage, op-
pression and humiliation inflicted on our splendid country by the tsarist
hangmen, the nobles and the capitalists. We are proud of the fact that
these outrages have roused resistance in our midst, the midst of the Great
Russians; that from this midst have sprung Radishchev, the Decembrists
and the revolutionary commoners of the 'seventies; that the Great- Russian
working class in 1905 created a mighty, revolutionary mass party; that
at the same time the Great- Russian muzhik began to become a democrat,
and began to overthrow the priest and the landlord.
We remember that half a century ago the Great- Russian democrat Cher-
nyshevsky, devoting his life to the cause of the revolution, said: "a miser-
able nation, a nation of slaves, from top to bottom — all slaves." The
avowed and unavowed Great- Russian slaves (slaves of the tsarist monarchy)
do not like to recall these words. Yet, in our opinion, these were words
of genuine love of our country, love saddened by the absence of a revolu-
tionary spirit among the masses of the Great- Russian people. At that time
this spirit did not exist. There is little of it now; but it exists. We are
filled with a sense of national pride because the Great- Russian nation
has also created a revolutionary class, has also proved that it is capable
of showing mankind great examples of struggle for freedom and for Social-
ism, and not only great pogroms, rows of gallows, dungeons, great
famines and great servility towards priests, tsars, landlords and capital-
ists.
We are filled with a sense of national pride, and for that very reason
we particularly hate our slavish past (when the noble landlords led the mu-
zhiks to war in order to crush the freedom of Hungary, Poland, Persia and
China), and our slavish present, when these very landlords, backed by the
capitalists, are leading us to war in order to throttle Poland and the
Ukraine, in order to crush the democratic movement in Persia and in
China, and in order to strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskys and
Purishkeviches who are disgracing our Great- Russian national dignity.
A man is not to blame for being born a slave; but a slave who not only
shuns the striving for freedom but justifies and embellishes his slavery
(for example, calls the throttling of Poland, Ukraine, etc., "defence of
the fatherland" of the Great Russians) — such a slave is a menial and a
cad, who inspires legitimate anger, contempt and disgust.
"No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations," said the greatest
representatives of consistent democracy of the nineteenth century, Marx
and Engels, who became the teachers of the revolutionary proletariat.
And we Great- Russian workers, filled with a sense of national pride, want
at all costs a free and independent, democratic, republican, proud Great
Russia, which shall base its relations with its neighbours on the human
principle of equality, and not on the feudal principle of privilege, which
is degrading to a great nation. Precisely because we want this, we say:
40*
628 V. I. LENIN
it is impossible, in the twentieth century, in Europe (even in Far Eastern
Europe), to "defend the fatherland" except by fighting by all revolution-
ary means the monarchy, the landlords and capitalists of our own father*
land, i.e., the worst enemies of our country; that Great Russians cannot
"defend their fatherland" unless they desire the defeat of tsarism in any
war, as being the least evil for nine- tenths of the population of Great Rus-
sia; for tsarism is not only oppressing these nine- tenths of the population
economically and politically, but is also demoralizing, degrading, dis-
honouring and prostituting them by teaching it to oppress other nations,
teaching it to cover up its shame with the aid of hypocritical, pseudo-
patriotic phrases.
We may be told that apart from tsarism, and under its wing, another
historical force has arisen and become strong, Great- Russian capitalism,
which is performing progressive work by economically centralizing and
uniting vast regions. This objection, however, does not excuse, on the con-
trary, it still more strongly accuses our Socialist-chauvinists, who should
be called tsarist-Purishkevich Socialists (just as Marx called the Lassal-
leans, Royal- Prussian Socialists). Let us assume that history will decide
the question in favour of Great- Russian Great Power capitalism, and
against the hundred and one small nations. This is not impossible, for the
whole history of capital is a history of violence and plunder, blood and
mud. We are not in favour of preserving small nations at all costs; other
conditions being equal, we are absolutely in favour of centralization and
are opposed to the petty-bourgeois ideal of federal relationships. Even in
the case we have assumed, however, firstly, it is not our business, not the
business of democrats (let alone of Socialists) to help Romanov- Bobrin-
sky-Purishkevich to throttle the Ukraine, etc. Bismarck in his own,
Junker, way, performed a progressive historical task; but 1 e would be
a fine "Marxist," indeed, who, on these grounds, thought of justifying
Socialist support for Bismarck I Moreover, Bismarck facilitated eco-
nomic development by uniting the scattered Germans who were oppressed
by other nations. The economic prosperity and rapid development of
Great Russia, however, requires that the country be liberated from
the violence the Great Russians perpetrate against other nations— our
admirers of the truly Russian near-Bismarcks forget this difference.
Secondly, if history decides the question in favour of Great- Russian
Great Power capitalism, it follows that all the greater will be the Social-
ist role of the Great- Russian proletariat as the principal driving force
of the Communist revolution, which capitalism gives rise to. And the
proletarian revolution requires the prolonged education of the workers in
the spirit of complete national equality and fraternity. Hence, from the
point of view of the interests of precisely the Great- Russian proletariat,
the prolonged education of the masses is required so that they may most
resolutely, consistently, boldly and in a revolutionary manner champion
complete equality and the right of self-determination for all the nations
THE NATIONAL PRIDE OF THE GREAT RUSSIANS G29
oppressed by the Great Russians. The interests (not in the slavish sense)
of the national pride of the Great Russians coincide with the Socialist
interests of the Great-Russian (and all other) proletarians. Our model
will always be Marx, who, having lived in England for decades, became
half English and demanded the freedom and national independence
of Ireland in the interests of the Socialist movement of the English workers.
In the latter case that we have assumed, our home-grown Socialist-
chauvinists, Plekhanov, etc., etc., will not only prove to be traitors to
their country, free and democratic Great Russia, but also traitors to
the proletarian brotherhood of all the nations of Russia, i.e., to the cause
of Socialism.
Soteial-Demokrat No. 35,
December 12, 1914
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE SLOGAN
In No. 40 of the Sotsial-Demokrat we reported that the conference of
the foreign sections of our Party had decided to defer the question of the
"United States of Europe" slogan pending a discussion in the press on the
economic side of the question.
The debate on this question at our conference assumed a one-sidedly po-
litical character. Perhaps this was partly due to the fact that the Manifesto
of the Central Committee directly formulated this slogan as a political one
("the immediate political slogan. ..." it says there), and not only did it
put forward the slogan of a republican United States of Europe, but ex-
pressly emphasized the point that this slogan would be senseless and false
"without the revolutionary overthrow of the German, Austrian and Russian
monarchies."
It would be absolutely wrong to object to such a presentation of the
question merely from the standpoint of a political estimation of the partic-
ular slogan — as for instance, that it obscures or weakens, etc., the slogan
of a Socialist revolution. Political changes of a truly democratic trend, and
political revolutions all the more, can never under any circumstances
obscure or weaken the slogan of a Socialist revolution. On the contrary,
they always bring it nearer, widen the basis for it, draw new sections of
the petty bourgeoisie and the semi-proletarian masses into the Socialist
struggle. On the other hand, political revolutions are inevitable in the
course of the Socialist revolution, which must not be regarded as a single
act, but as an epoch of turbulent political and economic upheavals of the
most acute class struggle, civil war, revolutions and counter-revolutions.
But while the slogan of a republican United States of Europe, placed in
conjunction with the revolutionary overthrow of the three most reactionary
monarchies in Europe, headed by the Russian, is quite invulnerable as a
political slogan, there still remains the highly important question of its
economic meaning and significance. From the standpoint of the economic
conditions of imperialism — i.e., export of capital and the fact that the
world has been divided up among the "advanced" and "civilized" colonial
powers — a United States of Europe, under capitalism, is either impossible
or reactionary.
Capital has become international and monopolistic. The world has been
divided up among a handful of great powers, i.e., powers successful in the
great plunder and oppression of nations. The four Great Powers of Europe*
England, France, Russia and Germany, with a population ranging
630
THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE SLOGAN 631
from 250,000,000 to 300,000,000 with an area of about 7,000,000 square
kilometres, possess colonies with a population of almost half a billion
(494,500,000), with an area of 64,600,000 square kilometres, i.e., almost
half the surface of the globe (133,000,000 square kilometres, not including
the Arctic region). Add to this the three Asiatic states, China, Turkey and
Persia, which are now being torn to pieces by the marauders who are
waging a "war of liberation," namely, Japan, Russia, England and France.
In those three Asiatic states, which may be called semi-colonies (in reality
they are now nine-tenths colonies), there are 360,000,000 inhabitants and
their area is 14,500,000 square kilometres (almost one and one-half times
the area of the whole of Europe).
Further, England, France and Germany have invested capital abroad to
the amount of no less than 70 ,000 ,000,000 rubles. The function of securing
a "legitimate" profit from this tidy sum, a profit exceeding 3,000,000,000
rubles annually, is performed by the national committees of millionaires,
termed governments, which are equipped with armies and navies and which
"place" the sons and brothers of "Mr. Billion" in the colonies and semi-
colonies in the capacity of viceroys, consuls, ambassadors, officials of all
kinds, priests and other leeches.
This is how the plunder of about a billion of the earth's population by a
handful of Great Powers is organized in the epoch of the highest develop-
ment of capitalism. No other organization is possible under capitalism.
Give up colonies, "spheres of influence," export of capital? To think that
this is possible means sinking to the level of some mediocre parson who
preaches to the rich every Sunday about the lofty principles of Christianity
and advises them to give to the poor, if not several billions, at least
several hundred rubles yearly.
A United States of Europe under capitalism is tantamount to an agree-
ment to divide up the colonies. Under capitalism, however, no other basis,
no other principle of division is possible except force. A billionaire cannot
share the "national income" of a capitalist country with anyone except in
proportion to the capital invested (with an extra bonus thrown in, so that
the largest capital may receive more than its due). Capitalism is private
property in the means of production, and anarchy in production. To preach
a "just" division of income on such a basis is Proudhonism, is stupid philis-
tinism. Division cannot take place except in "proportion to strength." And
strength changes with the progress of economic development. After 1871
'Germany grew strong three or four times faster than England and France;
Japan, about ten times faster than Russia. There is and there can be no
other way of testing the real strength of a capitalist state than that of war.
War does not contradict the principles of private property— on the contrary,
it is a direct and inevitable outcome of those principles. Under capitalism
the even economic growth of individual enterprises, or individual states,
is impossible. Under capitalism, there are no other means of restoring the pe-
riodically disturbed equilibrium than crises in industry and wars in politics.
682 V. I. LENIN
Of course, temporary agreements between capitalists and between the
Powers are possible. In this sense a United States of Europe is possible as
an agreement between the European capitalists . . . but what for? Only
for the purpose of jointly suppressing Socialism in Europe, of jointly pro-
tecting colonial booty against Japan and America, which feel badly treated
by the present division of colonies, and which, for the last half century,
have grown strong infinitely faster than backward, monarchist Europe,
which is beginning to decay with age. Compared with the United States of
America, Europe as a whole signifies economic stagnation. On the present
economic basis, i.e., under capitalism, a United States of Europe would
mean the organization of reaction to retard the more rapid development of
America. The times when the cause of democracy and Socialism was associ-
ated with Europe alone have gone forever.
A United States of the World (not of Europe alone) is the state form of
national federation and national freedom which we associate with Social-
ism — until the complete victory of Communism brings about the total dis-
appearance of the state, including the democratic state. As a separate slo-
gan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a
correct one, first, because it merges with Socialism; second, because it may
be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of Socialism in a single
country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the
relations of such a country to the others.
Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of cap-
italism. Hence, the victory of Socialism is possible first in several or even
in one capitalist country, taken singly. The victorious proletariat of that
country, having expropriated the capitalists and organized its own Social-
ist production, would stand up against the rest of the world, the capital-
ist world, attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries,
raising revolts in those countries against the capitalists, and in the event
of necessity coming out even with armed force against the exploiting
classes and their states. The political form of society in which the prole-
tariat is victorious by overthrowing the bourgeoisie, will be a democratic
republic, which will more and more centralize the forces of the proletariat
of the given nation, or nations, in the struggle against the states that have
not yet gone over to Socialism. The abolition of classes is impossible with-
out the dictatorship of the oppressed class , the proletariat. The free union of
nations in Socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and
stubborn struggle of the Socialist republics against the backward states*
It is for these reasons and after repeated debates at the conference of the
foreign sections of the R. S. D. L.P., and after the conference, that the edi-
tors of the Central Organ have come to the conclusion that the United
States of Europe slogan is incorrect.
Sotsial-Demokrat No. 44,
August 23, 1915
OPPORTUNISM AND THE COLLAPSE
OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL
Has the Second International really ceased to exist? Its most authori-
tative representatives, like Kautsky and Vandervelde stubbornly deny it.
Their point of view is that nothing has happened except the rupture of
relations; everything is as it should be.
To get to the truth of the matter, we will turn to the Manifesto of the
Basle Congress of 1912, which applies precisely to the present imperialist
World War and was accepted by all the Socialist parties of the world. It
should be noted that not a single Socialist dares, in theory, to deny the
necessity of giving a concrete, historical appraisal of every war.
Now that war has broken out, neither the avowed opportunists nor the
Kautskyites dare repudiate the Basle Manifesto or compare the conduct
of the Socialist parties during the war with the demands contained in it*
Why? Because the Manifesto completely exposes both.
There is not a single word in the Basle Manifesto about defence of the
fatherland, or about the difference between a war of aggression and a war
of defence, or a single word about what the opportunists and Kautskyites*
of Germany and of the Entente are shouting to the world at all the
crossroads. The Manifesto could not say anything of the kind, because what
it does say absolutely precludes the application of such concepts. It very
concretely refers to the series of economic and political conflicts which for
decades had prepared the ground for the present war, conflicts which be-
came quite apparent in 1912, and which brought about the war in 1914. The
Manifesto recalls the Russo- Austrian conflict for "hegemony in the Bal-
kans"; the conflicts between "England, France and Germany" (among all
these countries I) over their "policy of conquest in the Near East"; the
Austro-Italian conflict over the "striving for dominion" in Albania, etc*
In short, the Manifesto defines all these conflicts as conflicts which had aris-
en on the basis of "capitalist imperialism." Thus, the Manifesto very clear-
* This refers not to the personalities of Kautsky 's followers in Germany, but
to the international type of pseudo-Marxist who vacillates between opportunism
and radicalism, but in reality serves only as a fig-leaf for opportunism.
633
634 V. I. LENIN
ly formulates the predatory, imperialist, reactionary, slaveowner character
of the present war, i.e., a character which makes the admissibility of de-
fending the fatherland nonsensical in theory and absurd in practice.
A struggle is going on among big sharks who want to gobble up other
people's "fatherlands." The Manifesto draws the inevitable conclusions
from undisputed historical facts: the war "cannot be justified in the least
by the pretext of being in the interest of the people"; that it is being
prepared for "in the interests of the profits of the capitalists and the ambi-
tions of dynasties." It would be a "crime" if the workers began to "shoot
each other," says the Manifesto.
The epoch of capitalist imperialism is the epoch of ripe and over-ripe
capitalism, which is on the eve of collapse, which is sufficiently ripe to make
way for Socialism. The period between 1789 and 1871 was the epoch of
progressive capitalism; when the tasks of overthrowing feudalism and ab-
solutism, and of liberation from the foreign yoke were on the order of the
day of history. On these grounds , and on these alone , "defence of the father-
land," i.e., struggle against oppression, was permissible. This term would
be applicable even now to a war against the imperialist Great Powers; but
it would be absurd to apply it to a war among the imperialist Great Powers,
to a war to determine who will be able to rob the Balkan countries, Asia
Minor, etc., most. It is not surprising, therefore, that the "Socialists" who
advocate "defence of the fatherland" in the present war shun the Basle
Manifesto as a thief shuns the place where he has committed a theft. The
Manifesto proves that they are social-chauvinists, i.e., Socialists in words,
but chauvinists in deeds, who are helping their "own" bourgeoisie to rob
other countries, to enslave other nations. The quintessence of the term
"chauvinism" is precisely defence of one's "own" fatherland, even when it
is striving to enslave other people's fatherlands.
The recognition of the war as a war for national liberation leads to the
adoption of one set of tactics; its recognition as an imperialist war leads to
the adoption of another set of tactics. The Manifesto clearly points to the
latter. The war, it says, "will lead to an economic and political crisis," and
"advantage" of this must be taken, not to mitigate the crisis, not to defend
the fatherland, but, on the contrary, to "rouse" the masses, to "hasten the
abolition of capitalist class rule." It is impossible to has ten something for
which the historical conditions have not ripened. The Manifesto declared
that the social revolution was possible, that the prerequisites for it had
ripened, that it would break out precisely in connection with war. Referring
to the examples of the Paris Commune and the Revolution of 1905 in Russia,
i.e., to the examples of mass strikes and of civil war, the Manifesto
declares that "the ruling classes" fear "a proletarian revolution
following as a result of a world war." To say, as Kautsky does, that the
Socialist attitude to the present war was not defined, is a He. This question
was not only discussed, but decided in Basle, where the tactics of
revolutionary proletarian mass struggle were adopted.
OPPORTUNISM AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL 635
To ignore the Basle Manifesto in its entirety, or its most essential parts,
and to quote instead the speeches of leaders, or the resolutions passed by
various parties, which, in the first place, preceded the Basle Congress, sec-
ondly, weire not the decisions of the parties of the whole world, and thirdly,
referred to various possible wars, but not to the present war, is sheer hypoc-
risy. The core of the question is the fact that the epoch of national wars of
the European Great Powers has been superseded by an epoch of imperialist
wars among the Great Powers, and that the Basle Manifesto for the first
time had to recognize this fact officially.
It would be a mistake to assume that the Basle Manifesto cannot be in-
terpreted as being merely a solemn declaration or a pompous threat. That
is how those whom the Manifesto exposes would like to interpret it. But it
would be wrong to do so. The Manifesto is but the result of the great pro-
paganda work carried on throughout the entire epoch of the Second Inter-
national; it is but a summary of all that the Socialists have disseminated
among the masses in the hundreds of thousands of speeches, articles and man-
ifestos they have delivered and written in all languages. It merely re-
peats what Jules Guesde, for example, wrote in 1899, when he condemned
Socialist ministerialism in the event of war: he wrote of war provoked by
the "capitalist pirates" (En Garde, p. 175); it merely repeats what Kautsky
wrote in 1908 in his Road to Power , where he admitted that the "peaceful"
epoch was drawing to a close and that the epoch of wars and revolutions
was beginning. To represent the Basle Manifesto as a mere collection of
phrases, or as a mistake, is tantamount to regarding the whole of the work
that Socialists have been conducting for the last twenty- five years as a
collection of phrases, or a mistake. The contradiction between the Man-
ifesto and its non- application is so intolerable for the opportunists and
Kautskyites for the very reason that it reveals the profound contradictions
inherent in the work of the Second International. The relatively "peaceful"
character of the period between 1871 and 1914 first of all fostered oppor-
tunism as a mood9 then as a trend, and finally, as a group or stratum of the
labour bureaucracy and petty- bourgeois fellow-travellers. These elements
were able to gain the upper hand in the labour movement only by recog-
nizing, in words, revolutionary aims and revolutionary tactics. They were
able to win the confidence of the masses only by solemnly vowing that all
this "peaceful" work was only preparation for the proletarian revolution.
This contradiction was an abscess which had to burst some day, and it has
burst. The whole question is: is it necessary to try, as Kautsky and Co. are
doing, to reinject the pus into the body for the sake of "unity" (with the
pus), or whether, in order to bring about the complete recovery of the body
of the labour movement, to remove the pus as quickly and as thoroughly as
possible, notwithstanding the acute pain temporarily caused by the process.
The betrayal of Socialism by those who voted for war credits, entered
Cabinets and advocated defence of the fatherland in 1914-15 is obvious.
Only hypocrites can deny it. This betrayal must be explained.
636 V. I. LENIN
II
It would be absurd to regard the whole question as one of personalities.
What has opportunism to do with it when men like Plekhanov and Ouesde
etc.? — asks Kautsky (NeueZeit,Mzy 18, 1915). What has opportunism to
do with it when Kautsky, etc.? — replies Axelrod in the name of the oppor-
tunists of the Entente (Die Krise der Sozialdemokratie, Zurich, 1915,
p. 21). All this is a farce. To explain the crisis of the whole movement it is
necessary, firstly, to examine the economic significance of a given
policy; secondly, the ideas underlying it; and thirdly, its connection
wi th the hi s tor y o f the v ar i o u s tr end s in the $o-
cialist movement.
What is the economic aspect of the theory of national defence in the war
of 1914-15? The bourgeoisie of all the Great Powers are waging the war for
the purpose of partitioning and exploiting the world, for the purpose of
oppressing other nations . A few crumbs of the huge profits of the bourgeoisie
may fall to the share of a small circle of the labour bureaucracy, the labour
aristocracy, and the petty-bourgeois fellow-travellers. The class basis of
social-chauvinism and of opportunism is the same, namely, the alliance be-
tween a thin stratum of privileged workers and "their" national bourgeoisie
against the masses of the working class; the alliance between the lackeys
of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie against the class the latter is
exploiting.
Opportunism and social-chauvinism have ihe same political content, namely,
class collaboration, repudiation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, re-
Ediation of revolutionary action, unconditional recognition of bourgeois
jality, lack of confidence in the proletariat, confidence in the bourgeoisie.
Social-chauvinism is the direct continuation and consummation of English
liberal-labour politics, of Millerandism and Bernsteinism.
The struggle between the two main trends in the labour movement,
between revolutionary Socialism and opportunist Socialism, fills the entire
epoch from 1889 to 1914. At the present time also, in every country, there
are two main trends which diverge on the question of the attitude to be
taken towards the war. Let us not resort to the bourgeois and opportunist
method of referring to personalities. Let us take the trends observed in a
number of countries. Let us take ten European countries: Germany, Eng-
land, Russia, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Belgium and
France. In the first eight countries the division into opportunists and t ad-
icals corresponds to the division into social-chauvinists and international-
ists. In Germany the Sozialistiche Monatshefte and Legien and Co. serve as
the strongholds of social-chauvinism; in England it is the Fabians and the
Labour Party (the I.L.P. has always been in alliance with the latter; it
supported their organ, and in this alliance it was always weaker than the
social-chauvinists, whereas in the B.S.P. the internationalists form three-
sevenths of the membership); in Russia this trend is represented by Nasha
OPPORTUNISM AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL 637
Zarya (now Nashe Dyelo), by the Organization Committee, and by the
Duma group under Chkheidze's leadership; in Italy it is represented by the
reformists with Bissolati at their head; in Holland by Troelstra's party;
in Sweden by the majority of the Party led by Branting; in Bulgaria by the
so-called "broad" Socialists; in Switzerland by Greulich and Co. On the
other hand, in all these countries we have heard from the opposite, radical
camp, a more or less consistent protest against social-chauvinism. Only
two countries form an exception, France and Belgium, where interna-
tionalism also exists, but is very weak.
Social-chauvinism is the consummation of opportunism. It is opportun-
ism that has ripened for an open, often vulgar, alliance with the bourgeoi-
sie and the General Staffs.
It is this alliance that gives it great power and the monopoly of the legal
printed word and of deceiving the masses. It is absurd at the present time
to regard opportunism as a phenomenon within our Party. It is absurd to think
of carrying out the Basle resolution in conjunction with David, Legien,
Hyndman, Plekhanov and Webb. Unity with the social-chauvinists means
unity with one 's "own" national bourgeoisie, which exploits other nations;
it means splitting the international proletariat. This does not mean that an
immediate breach with the opportunists is possible everywhere; it means
only that historically this breach has matured; that it is necessary and inev-
itable for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat; that history, which
has led us from "peaceful" capitalism to imperialist capitalism, has pre-
pared the way for this rupture. Volentem ducunt fata, nolentem trahunt.*
Ill
The shrewd representatives of the bourgeoisie understand this perfectly.
That is why they are so lavish in their praise of the present Socialist Par-
ties, headed by the "defenders of the father land, "t'.e. , defenders of imperial-
ist robbery. That is why the governments reward the social-chauvinist lead-
ers either with ministerial posts (in France and England), or with a monop-
oly of unhindered legal existence (in Germany and Russia). That is why
in Germany, where the Social-Democratic Party was the strongest and
where its transformation into a national- liberal counter-revolutionary la-
bour party has been most obvious, things have got to the stage where the
public prosecutor regards the struggle between the "minority" and the
"majority" as "incitement to class hatred!" That is why the shrewd oppor-
tunists are concerned most of all with the preservation of the former "unity"
of the old parties, which rendered such great service to the bourgeoisie in
1914-15. The views of these opportunists of all countries of the world were
expounded with a frankness worthy of gratitude by a member of German
' The fates lead the Billing, drag the unwilling,— Ed.
638 V. I. LENIN
Social-Democracy in an article signed "Monitor" which appeared in April
1915, in the reactionary magazine Preussische Jahrbucher. Monitor thinks
that it would be very dangerous for the bourgeoisie if Social-Democracy
moved still further to the Bight.
"It [Social-Democracy] must preserve its character as a labour
party with Socialist ideals; for on the very day it gives this up a new
party will arise, which will adopt the abandoned program in a more
radical formulation." (Preussische Jahrbucher, 1915, No. 4, p. 51.)
Monitor hits the nail on the head. This is exactly what the English Lib-
erals and the French Radicals have always wanted: revolutionary-sound-
ing phrases for the purpose of deceiving the masses, for the purpose of in-
ducing them to place their trust in the Lloyd Georges, the Sembats,
the Renaudels, the Legiens, and the Kautskys, in the men capable of
preaching "defence of the fatherland" in a predatory war.
But Monitor represents only one variety of opportunism: the frank,
crude, cynical variety. The others act in a stealthy, subtle, "honest" man-
ner. Engels once said that "honest" opportunists are the most dangerous
for the working class. . . . Here is one example:
Kautsky 9 in the Neue Zeit (November 26, 1915), writes:
"The opposition against the majority is growing; the masses are
in an opposition mood. . . . After the war [only after the war? N.L.]
class antagonisms will become so sharp that radicalism will gain the
upper hand among the masses. . . . After the war [only after the war?
N.L.~\ we will be menaced by the desertion of the radical elements from
the Party and their influx into the party of anti-parliamentary [??
this should be taken to mean extra-parliamentary] mass action. . . .
Thus, our Party is splitting up into two extreme camps, having noth-
ing in common with each other."
For the sake of saving unity Kautsky tries to persuade the majority in
the Reichstag to allow the minority to make a few radical parliament,
ary speeches. That means that Kautsky wishes, with the aid of a few rad-
ical parliamentary speeches, to reconcile the revolutionary masses with the
opportunists, who have "nothing in common" with revolution, who have
long had the leadership of the trade unions, and now, relying on their
close alliance with the bourgeoisie and the government, have also captured
the leadership of the party. What material difference is there between this
and Monitor's "program"? None, except for sentimental phrases which
prostitute Marxism.
At a meeting of the Reichstag group held on March 18, l9l59Wurm, a
Kautskyite, "warned" the group against "pulling the strings too tight.
There is growing opposition among the masses of the workers against the
majority of the group, and it is necessary to keep to the Marxian" (?! pro-
bably a misprint: this should read "the Monitor") "Centre." (Klassenkampf
OPPORTUNISM AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL 639
gegen denKrieg. Material zum FallLiebknecht.* Privately printed, p. 67.)
We see, therefore, that the revolutionary sentiment of the m a s s e s was
admitted as a fact on behalf of all the Kautskyites (the so-called "Centre")
as early as March, 191511 And eight and a half months later, Kautsky again
comes forward with the proposal to "reconcile" the masses who want to
fight the opportunist, counter-revolutionary party — and he wants to do
this with the aid of a few revolutionary-sounding phrases 1 !
Frequently war has its uses in that it exposes what is rotten and throws
off convention.
Let us compare the English -Fabians with the German Kautskyites. This
is what a real Marxist, Friedrich Engels, wrote about the former on
January 18, 1893:
"... a gang of place hunters, shrewd enough to understand the
inevitability of the social revolution, but totally unwilling to en-
trust this gigantic task to the immature proletariat alone. . . .Their
fundamental principle is fear of revolution. "(Letters toSorge,p. 390.)
And on November 11, 1893, he wrote:
". . . those haughty bourgeois who graciously condescend to
emancipate the proletariat from above if only it would understand
that such a raw, uneducated mass cannot liberate itself and cannot
achieve anything without the grace of these clever lawyers, writers
and sentimental old women." (Ibid., p. 401.)
In theory Kautsky looks down upon the Fabians with the contempt of a
pharisee for a poor sinner; for he worships at the shrine of "Marxism." But
what difference is there between the two in practice? Both signed the Basle
Manifesto, and both treated it in the same way as Wilhelm II treated Bel-
gian neutrality. But Marx all his life castigated those who strove to quench
the revolutionary spirit of the workers.
In opposition to the revolutionary Marxists, Kautsky has advanced the
new theory of "ultra-imperialism." By this he means that the "struggle of
national finance capitalists among themselves" will be superseded by the
"exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital" (Neue
Zeit, April 30, 1915). But he adds: "We have not yet sufficient data to de-
cide whether this new phase of capitalism is possible." Thus, on the grounds
of a mere assumption about a "new phase," not even daring to declare defi-
nitely that it is "possible," the inventor of this "phase" rejects his own
revolutionary declarations, rejects the revolutionary tasks and revolution-
ary tactics of the proletariat in the present "phase" of an already incipient
crisis, of war, of unprecedentedly sharp class antagonisms! Is this not Fa-
bianism of the most abominable type?
"The Class Struggle Against the War. Materials on the Liebknecht Caae."--Ed.
V. I. LENIN
Axelrod, the leader of the Russian Kautskyites, declared that:
"The centre of gravity of the problem of internationalizing the
proletarian movement for emancipation is the internationalization
of everyday practice"; for example: "labour protection and insurance
legislation must become the object of the workers' international
actions and organization." (Axelrod, The Crisis of Social-Democracy,
Zurich, 1915, pp. 39-40.)
It is quite clear that not only Legien, David and the Webbs, but even
Lloyd George himself, and Nauman, Briand and Milyukov would fully
associate themselves with such "internationalism." As in 1912, Axelrod,
for the sake of the very distant future, is prepared to utter the most revo-
lutionary phrases if the future International "comes out" (against the gov-
ernments in case of war) "and raises a revolutionary storm." Oh, how
brave we are I But when the question is raised of helping and developing the
incipient revolutionary ferment among the masses n o wy Axelrod replies
that these tactics of revolutionary mass actions "would be justified to some
extent if we were on the very eve of the social revolution, as was the case in
Russia, for example, where the student disorders of 1901 heralded the ap-
proaching decisive battles against absolutism." At the present moment,
however, all this is "utopia," "Bakuninism," etc. This is quite in the spirit
of Kolb, David, Siidekum and Legien.
Dear Axelrod forgets, however, that nobody in Russia in 1901 knew, nor
could know, that the first "decisive battle" would take place four years
later — don't forget, four years, and would be "indecisive." Nevertheless,
we revolutionary Marxists alone were right at that time: we ridiculed the
Krichevskys andMartynovs, who called for an immediate assault. We mere-
ly advised the workers to kick out the opportunists everywhere and to exert
every effort to sustain, sharpen and widen the demonstrations and other
mass revolutionary actions. The present situation in Europe is perfectly
analogous. It would be absurd to call for an "immediate" assault; but it
would be disgraceful to call oneself a Social-Democrat and yet refrain from
advising the workers to break with the opportunists and to exert all efforts
to strengthen, deepen, widen and sharpen the incipient revolutionary move-
ment and demonstrations. Revolution never falls ready-made from the
skies, and at the beginning of a revolutionary ferment nobody can tell
whether and when it will lead to a "real," "genuine" revolution. Kautsky
and Axelrod give the workers old, threadbare, counter-revolutionary ad-
vice. Kautsky and Axelrod feed the masses with the hope that the future
International will certainly be revolutionary, only in order at present to
protect, camouflage and embellish the domination of the counter-revolu-
tionary elements — the Legiens, Davids, Vanderveldes and Hyndmans. Is
it not obvious that "unity" with Legien and Co. is the best means for pre-
paring the "future" revolutionary International?
OPPORTUNISM AND THE COLLAPSE OF T.HE SECOND INTERNATIONAL &*1
"To strive to convert the World War into civil war would be madness/'
declares David, the leader of the German opportunists (Die Sozialdemok-
ratie undder Weltkrieg [Social- Democracy and the World War], 1915, p. 172),
in reply to the manifesto of the Central Committee of our Party, November
1, 1914. This manifesto says, inter alia:
"However difficult such a transformation may appear at any given
moment, Socialists will never relinquish systematic, persistent and
undeviating preparatory work in this direction once war has become a
fact."* (This passage is also quoted by David, p. 171.)
A month before David's book appeared our Party published resolutions
in which "systematic preparation" was defined as follows: 1) refusal to
vote for credits; 2) breaking the class truce; 3) formation of underground or-
ganizations; 4) support of manifestations of solidarity in the trenches;
5) support of all revolutionary mass actions.
David is almost as brave as Axelrod. In 1912 he did not think it was
"madness" to point to the Paris Commune as an example of what would
happen in the event of war.
Plekhanov, that typical representative of the Entente social-chauvinists,
argues about revolutionary tactics in the same way as David. He calls it a
"farcical dream." But listcrt to what Kolb, a frank opportunist, has to say.
Kolb wrote:
"The tactics of those who group themselves around Liebknecht
would result in the struggle within the German nation reaching boil-
ing point." (Die Sozialdemokratie am Scheidewege [Social- Democracy
at the Cross-roads], p. 50.)
But what is a struggle which has reached boiling point if not civil war?
If the tactics of our Central Committee, which, in the main, correspond
to the tactics of the Zimmerwald Left, were "madness," "dreams," "adven-
turism," "Bakuninism," as David, Plekhanov, Axelrod, Kautsky, and oth-
ers have asserted, they could never lead to a "struggle within a nation," let
alone to the struggle reaching boiling point. Nowhere in the world have
anarchist phrases brought about a struggle within a nation. But facts prove
that precisely in 1915, as a result of the crisis created by the war, the revo-
lutionary ferment among the masses increased; strikes and political demon-
strations in Russia, strikes in Italy and in England, hunger demonstrations
and political demonstrations in Germany, have all increased. Are these
not the beginnings of revolutionary mass struggles?
To strengthen, develop, widen, sharpen mass revolutionary actions; to
create underground organizations — without which it is impossible even in
"free" countries to tell the truth to the masses of the people — this is the
* See this volume p. 625— Ed.
41—685
642 V. 1. LENIN
sum and substance of the practical program of Social- Democracy in this war.
Everything else is either lies or phrases, no matter what opportunist or paci-
fist theories it is embellished with.*
When we are told that these "Russian tactics" (David's expression) are
not applicable to Europe, we usually reply by pointing to the facts. On
November 30 a delegation of Berlin women comrades appeared before the
Executive Committee of the Party in Berlin, and stated that
"now that we have a large organi2ing apparatus it is much easier to
distribute illegal pamphlets and leaflets and to organize 'prohibited
meetings' than it was under the Anti-Socialist Law." "Ways and
means are not lacking, evidently the will is lacking." (Berner Tag-
wacht 1915, No. 271.)
Were these comrades bad and led astray by the Russian "sectarians,"
etc.? Are the real masses represented, not by these comrades, but by Legien
and Kautsky? By Legien, who in the lecture he delivered on January 27,
1915, thundered against the "anarchistic" idea of forming underground
organizations; and by Kautsky, who has become so counter-revolutionary
that on November 26, four days before the demonstration of ten thousand
in Berlin, he denounced street demonstrations as "adventurism"!!
Enough of phrases! Enough of prostituted "Marxism" a la Kautsky!
After twenty-five years of the Second International, after the Basle Mani-
festo, the workers will no longer trust in phrases. Opportunism has become
over-ripe; it has turned into social-chauvinism and has utterly deserted to
the camp of the bourgeoisie. It has severed its ties with Social-Democracy,
spiritually and politically. It will also break with it organizationally. The
workers are already demanding "illegal" pamphlets and "prohibited" meet-
ings, i.e., a secret organization to support the revolutionary mass move-
ment. Only when "war against war" is conducted on these lines does it
become Social-Democratic work, and not a phrase. And in spite of all
difficulties, temporary defeats, mistakes, going astray, interruptions, this
work will lead humanity to the victorious proletarian revolution.
Published in Vorbote No. 1,
January 1916
* At the International Women's Congress held in Berne in March 1915, the
representatives of the Central Committee of our Party urged the absolute necessity
for creating underground organizations. This was rejected. The English delegates
laughed at this proposal and praised English "liberty." But a few months later
English papers, like the Labour Leader, reached us with blank spaces, and then
news arrived about police raids, confiscation of pamphlets, arrests, and harsh
sentences imposed on comrades who spoke in England about peace, only about
peacel
IMPERIALISM,
THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM
A Populai Outline
PREFACE TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION
The pamphlet here presented to the reader was written in Zurich in the
spring of 1916. In the conditions in which I was obliged to work there I
naturally suffered somewhat from a shortage of French and English liter-
ature and from a serious dearth of Russian literature. However, I made use
of the principal English work, Imperialism, J. A. Hobson's book, with all
the care that, in my opinion, that work deserves.
This pamphlet was written with an eye to the tsarist censorship. Hence,
I was not only forced to confine myself strictly to an exclusively theoreti-
cal, mainly economic analysis of facts, but to formulate the few necessary
observations on politics with extreme caution, by hints, in that Aesopian
language — in that cursed Aesopian language — to which tsarism compelled
all revolutionaries to have recourse whenever they took up their pens to
write a "legal" work.*
It is very painful, in these days of liberty, to read these cramped passages
of the pamphlet, crushed, as they seem, in an iron vise, distorted on account
of the censor. Of how imperialism is the eve of the Socialist revolution; of
how social-chauvinism (Socialism in words, chauvinism in deeds) is the ut-
ter betrayal of Socialism, complete desertion to the side of the bourgeoisie;
of how the split in the labour movement is bound up with the objective
conditions of imperialism, etc., I had to speak in a "slavish" tongue, and I
must refer the reader who is interested in the question to the volume, which
is soon to appear, in which are reproduced the articles I wrote abroad in the
years 1914-17. Special attention must be drawn, however, to a passage on
pages 119-20.** In order to show, in a guise acceptable to the censors, how
shamefully the capitalists and the social-chauvinist deserters (whom Kaut-
* "Aesopian," after the Greek fable writer Aesop, was the term applied to
the allusive and roundabout style adopted in "legal" publications by revolution-
aries in order to evade the censorship. — Ed.
** See this volume p. 735. — Ed.
41* 643
644 V. I. LENIN
sky opposes with so much inconsistency) lie on the question of annexations;
in order to show with what cynicism they screen the annexations of their
capitalists, I was forced to quote as an example — Japan 1 The careful read-
er will easily substitute Russia for Japan, and Finland, Poland, Courland,
the Ukraine, Khiva, Bokhara, Esthonia or other regions peopled by non-
Great Russians, for Korea.
I trust that this pamphlet will help the reader to understand the funda-
mental economic question, viz., the question of the economic essence of
imperialism, for unless this is studied, it will be impossible to understand
and appraise modern war and modern politics.
AUTHOR
Petrograd,
April 26, 1917
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 646
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH AND GERMAN EDITIONS
As was indicated in the preface to the Russian edition, this pamphlet
was written in 1916, with an eye to the tsarist censorship. I am unable to
revise the whole text at the present time, nor, perhaps, is this advisable,
since the main purpose of the book was and remains: to present, on the
basis of the summarized returns of irrefutable bourgeois statistics, and the
admissions of bourgeois scholars of all countries, a general picture of the
world capitalist system in its international relationships at the beginning
cf the twentieth century — on the eve of the first world imperialist war.
To a certain extent it will be useful for many Communists in advanced
capitalist countries to convince themselves by the example of this pam-
phlet, legal from the standpoint of the tsarist censor y of the possibility — and
necessity — of making use of even the slight remnants of legality which still
remain at the disposal of the Communists, say, in contemporary America
or France, after the recent wholesale arrests of Communists, in order to
explain the utter falsity of social-pacifist views and hopes for "world
democracy." The most essential of what should be added to this censored
pamphlet I shall try to present in this preface.
II
In the pamphlet I proved that the war of 1914-18 was imperialistic (that
is, an annexationist, predatory, plunderous war) on the part of both sides;
it was a war for the division of the world, for the partition and repartition
of colonies, "spheres of influence" of finance capital, etc.
Proof of what was the true social, or rather, the true class character of
the war is naturally to be found, not in the diplomatic history of the war,
but in an analysis of the objective posit ion of the ruling classes inall bellig-
erent countries. In order to depict this objective position one must not
take examples or isolated data (in view of the extreme complexity of social
life it is always quite easy to select any number of examples or separate
data to prove any point one desires), but the whole of the data concerning
the basis of economic life in all the belligerent countries and the
world.
646 V. I. LENIN
It is precisely irrefutable summarized data of this kind that I quoted in
describing the partition of the world in the period of 1876 to 1914 (in Chap-
ter VI) and the distribution of the railways all over the world in the period
of 1890 to 1913 (in Chapter VII). Railways combine within themselves the
basic capitalist industries: coal, iron and steel; and they are the most strik-
ing index of the development of international trade and bourgeois-
democratic civilization. In the preceding chapters of the book I showed how
the railways are linked up with large-scale industry, with monopolies, syn-
dicates, cartels, trusts, banks and the financial oligarchy. The uneven
distribution of the railways, their uneven development — sums up, as
it were, modern world monopolist capitalism. And this summing up
proves that imperialist wars are absolutely inevitable under such an
economic system, as long as private property in the means of production
exists.
The building of railways seems to be a simple, natural, democratic,
cultural and civilizing enterprise; that is what it is in the opinion of bour-
geois professors, who are paid to depict capitalist slavery in bright colours,
and in the opinion of petty-bourgeois philistines. But as a matter of fact
the capitalist threads, which in thousands of different inter-crossings bind
these enterprises with private property in the means of production in
general, have converted this work of construction into an instrument for
oppressing a thousand million people (in the colonies and semi-colonies),
that is, more than half the population of the globe, which inhabits the
subject countries, as well as the wage slaves of capital in the lands of
"civilization."
Private property based on the labour of the small proprietor, free compe-
tition, democracy, i.e., all the catchwords with which the capitalists and
their press deceive the workers and the peasants — are things of the past.
Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of
the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the population
of the world by a handful of "advanced" countries. And this "booty" is
shared between two or three powerful world marauders armed to the teeth
(America, Great Britain, Japan), who involve the whole world in their war
over the sharing of their booty.
Ill
The Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty dictated by monarchist Germany, and
later on, the much more brutal and despicable Versailles Treaty dictated
by the "democratic" republics of America and France and also by "free"
England, have rendered very good service to humanity by exposing both
the hired coolies of the pen of imperialism and the petty-bourgeois reac-
tionaries, although they call themselves pacifists and Socialists, who sang
praises to "Wilsonism," and who insisted that peace and reforms were
possible under imperialism.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 647
The tens of millions of dead and maimed left by the war — a war for the
purpose of deciding whether the British or German group of financial ma-
rauders i« to receive the lion's share — and the two "peace treaties," men-
tioned above, open the eyes of the millions and tens of millions of people,
who are downtrodden, oppressed, deceived and duped by the bourgeoisie,
with unprecedented rapidity. Thus, out of the universal ruin caused by
the war a world-wide revolutionary crisis is arising which, in spite of the
protracted and difficult stages it may have to pass, cannot end in any other
way than in a proletarian revolution and in its victory.
The Basle Manifesto of the Second International which in 1912 gave
an appraisal of the war that ultimately broke out in 1914, and not of war in
general (there are all kinds of wars, including revolutionary wars), this
Manifesto is now a monument exposing the shameful bankruptcy and treach-
ery of the heroes of the Second International.
That is why I reproduce this Manifesto as a supplement to the present
edition and again I call upon the reader to note that the heroes of the Second
International are just as assiduously avoiding the passages of this Mani-
festo which speak precisely, clearly and definitely of the connection
between that impending war and the proletarian revolution, as a thief
avoids the place where he has committed a theft.
IV
Special attention has been devoted in this pamphlet to a criticism of
"Kautskyism," the international ideological trend represented in all
countries of the world by the "prominent theoreticians" and leaders
of the Second International (Otto Bauer and Co. in Austria, Ramsay
MacDonald and others in England, Albert Thomas in France, etc., etc.)
and multitudes of Socialists, reformists, pacifists, bourgeois -democrats
and parsons.
This ideological trend is, on the one hand, a product of the disintegra-
tion and decay of the Second International, and, on the other hand, it is the
inevitable fruit of the ideology of the petty bourgeoisie, who, by the whole
of their conditions of life, are held captive to bourgeois and democratic
prejudices.
The views held by Kautsky and his like are a complete renunciation
of the very revolutionary principles of Marxism which he championed for
decades, especially in his struggle against Socialist opportunism (Bern-
stein, Millerand, Hyndman,Gompers, etc.). It is not a mere accident, there-
fore, that the "Kautsky ans" all over the world have now united in prac-
tical politics with the extreme opportunists (through the Second, or the
Yellow International) and with the bourgeois governments (through bour-
geois coalition governments in which Socialists take part).
The growing world proletarian revolutionary movement in general, and
the Communist movement in particular, demands that the theoretical errors
648 V, I. LENIN
of "Kfcutskyism" be analysed and exposed. The more so since pacifism and
"democracy" in general, which have no claim to Marxism whatever, but
which, like Kautsky and Co., are obscuring the profundity of the contra-
dictions of imperialism and the inevitable revolutionary crisis to which it
gives rise, are still very widespread all over the world. It is the bounden
duty of the Party of the proletariat to combat these tendencies and to win
away from the bourgeoisie the small proprietors who are duped by them,
and the millions of toilers who live in more or less petty-bourgeois
conditions of life.
V
- A few words must be said about Chapter VIII entitled: "The Parasitism
and Decay of Capitalism." As already pointed out in the text, Hilferding,
ex- "Marxist," and now a comrade-in-arms of Kautsky, one of the chief
exponents of bourgeois reformist policy in the Independent Social-Demo-
cratic Party of Germany, has taken a step backward compared with the
frankly pacifist and reformist Englishman, Hobson, on this question. The
international split of the whole labour movement is now quite evident (See*
ond and Third Internationals). Armed struggle and civil war between the
two trends is now a recognized fact: the support given to Kolchak and De-
nikin in Russia by the Mensheviks and "Socialist- Revolutionaries" against
the Bolsheviks; the fight the Scheidemanns, Noskes and Co. have conducted
in conjunction with the bourgeoisie against the Spartacists in Germany;
the same thing in Finland, Poland, Hungary, etc. What is the economic
basis of this historically important world phenomenon?
Precisely the parasitism and decay of capitalism which are the character-
istic features of its highest historical stage of development, i.e., imperial-
ism. As has been shown in this pamphlet, capitalism has now brought to
the front a handful (less than one-tenth of the inhabitants of the globe; less
than one-fifth, if the most "generous" and liberal calculations were made)
of very rich and very powerful states which plunder the whole world sim-
ply by "clipping coupons. "Capital exports produce an income of eight to
ten billion francs per annum, according to pre-war prices and pre-war bour-
geois statistics. Now, of course, they produce much more than that.
Obviously, out of such enormous super-profits (since they are obtained
over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of
their "home" country) it is quite possible to bribe the labour leaders and
the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. And the capitalists of the
"advanced" countries are bribing them; they bribe them in a thousand
different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert.
This stratumof bourgeoisified workers, of the "labour aristocracy," who
are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and
in their outlook, serves as the principal prop of the Second International,
and in our days, the principal social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 649
They are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement, the labour
lieutenants of the capitalist class, real channels of reformism and chauvin-
ism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inev-
itably, and in no small numbers, stand side by side with the bourgeoisie,
with the "Versaillese" against the "Communards."
Not the slightest progress can be made toward the solution of the prac-
tical problems of the Communist movement and of the impending social
revolution unless the economic roots of this phenomenon are understood
and unless its political and sociological significance is appreciated.
Imperialism is the eve of the proletarian social revolution. This has been
confirmed since 1917 on a world-wide scale.
N. LENIN
July 6, 1920
660 V. I. LENIN
During the last fifteen or twenty years, especially since the Spanish-
American War (1898), and the Anglo- Boer War (1899-1902), the economic
and also the political literature of the two hemispheres has more and more
often adopted the term "imperialism" in order to define the present era. In
1902, a book by the English economist J . A. Hobson, Imperialism, was pub-
lished in London and New York. This author, who adopts the point of
view of bourgeois social reformism and pacifism which, in essence, is iden-
tical with the present point of view of the ex-Marxist, K. Kautsky, gives
an excellent and comprehensive description of the principal economic and
political characteristics of imperialism. In 1910, there appeared in Vienna
the work of the Austrian Marxist, Rudolf Hilferding, Finance Capital
(Russian edition: Moscow, 1912). In spite of the mistake the author commits
on the theory of money, and in spite of a certain inclination on his part
to reconcile Marxism with opportunism, this work gives a very valuable
theoretical analysis, as its sub- title tells us, of "the latest phase of capital-
ist development." Indeed, what has been said of imperialism during the
last few years, especially in a great many magazine and newspaper articles,
and also in the resolutions, for example, of the Chemnitz and Basle Con-
gresses which took place in the autumn of 1912, has scarcely gone beyond
the ideas put forward, or, more exactly, summed up by the two writers
mentioned above.
Later on we shall try to show briefly, and as simply as possible, the
connection and relationships between the principal economic features of
imperialism. We shall not be able to deal with non-economic aspects of the
question, however much they deserve to be dealt with. We have put ref-
erences to literature and other notes which, perhaps, would not interest all
readers, at the end of this pamphlet.
I. CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION AND MONOPOLIES
The enormous growth of industry and the remarkably rapid process of
concentration of production in ever- larger enterprises represent one of the
most characteristic features of capitalism. Modern censuses of production
give very complete and exact data on this process.
In Germany, for example, for every 1,000 industrial enterprises, large
enterprises, i.e., those employing more than 50 workers, numbered three in
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 65J
1882, six in 1895 and nine in 1907; and out of every 100 workers employed,
this group of enterprises employed 22, 30 and 37 respectively. Concentration
of production, however, is much more intense than the concentration of
workers, since labour in the large enterprises is much more productive. This
is shown by the figures available on steam engines and electric motors.
If we take what in Germany is called industry in the broad sense of the
term, that is, including commerce, transport, etc., we get the following
picture: Large-scale enterprises 30,588 out of a total of 3,265,623, that is to
say, 0.9 per cent. These large-scale enterprises employ 5,700,000 workers
out of a total of 14,400,000, that is 39.4 per cent; they use 6,660,000 steam
horse power out of a total of 8,800,000, that is, 75.3 per cent and 1,200,000
kilowatts of electricity out of a total of 1,500,000, that is, 77.2 per cent.
Less than one-hundredth of the total enterprises utilize more than
three-fourths of the steam and electric power! Two million nine hundred and
seventy thousand small enterprises (employing up to five workers), repre-
senting 91 per cent of the total, utilize only 7 per cent of the steam and
electric power. Tens of thousands of large-scale enterprises are every-
thing; millions of small ones are nothing.
In 1907, there were in Germany 586 establishments employing one
thousand and more workers. They employed nearly one-tenth (1,380,000)
of the total number of workers employed in industry and utilized almost
one-third (32 per cent) of the total steam and electric power employed. * As
we shall see, money capital and the banks make this superiority of a hand-
ful of the largest enterprises still more overwhelming, in the most literal
sense of the word, since millions of small, medium, and even some big
"masters" are in fact in complete subjection to some hundreds of million-
aire financiers.
In another advanced country of modern capitalism, the United States of
America, the growth of the concentration of production is still greater.
Here statistics single out industry in the narrow sense of the word and group
enterprises according to the value of their annual output. In 1904 large-
scale enterprises with an annual output of one million dollars and over num-
bered 1,900 (out of 216,180, i.e., 0.9 per cent). These employed 1,400,000
workers (out of 5,500,000, i.e., 25.6 per cent) and their combined annual
output was valued at $5,600,000,000 (out of $ 1 4,800, 000, 000,i.e., 38 per
cent). Five years later, in 1909, the corresponding figures were: large-scale
enterprises: 3,060 out of 268, 491, i.e., 1.1 per cent, employ ing: 2,000,000
workers out of 6,600,000, i.e., 30.5 per cent, output: $ 9,000,000,000
out of $20,700,000,000, i.e., 43.8 per cent.**
Almost half the total production of all the enterprises of the country was
carried on by a hundredth part of those enterprises! These 3,000 giant en*
* Annalen des Deutschen Reiches (Annals of the German Empire), 1911, Zahn,
pp. 165-169.
** Statistical Abstract o/ the United States, 1912, p. 202.
652 V. I. LENIN
terprises embrace 268 branches of industry. From this it can be seen that, at
a certain stage of its development, concentration itself, as it were, leads
right to monopoly; for a score or so of giant enterprises can easily arrive at
an agreement, while on the other hand, the difficulty of competition and the
tendency towards monopoly arise from the very dimensions of the enter*
prises. This transformation of competition into monopoly is one of the
most important — if not the most important — phenomena of modern cap-
italist economy, and we must deal with it in greater detail. But first we
must clear up one possible misunderstanding.
American statistics say: 3,000 giant enterprises in 250 branches of
industry, as if there were only a dozen large-scale enterprises for each
branch of industry.
But this is not the case. Not in every branch of industry are there large-
scale enterprises; and moreover, a very important feature of capitalism in
its highest stage of development is so-called combined production, that is
to say, the grouping in a single enterprise of different branches of industry,
which either represent the consecutive stages in the working up of raw mate-
rials (for example, the smelting of iron ore into pig iron, the conversion
of pig iron into steel, and then, perhaps, the manufacture of steel goods) —
or are auxiliary to one another (for example, the utilization of waste, or of
by-products, the manufacture of packing materials, etc.).
"Combination," writes Hilferding, "levels out the fluctuations
of trade and therefore assures to the combined enterprises a more stable
rate of profit. Secondly, combination has the effect of eliminating
trading. Thirdly, it has the effect of rendering possible technical im-
provements, and, consequently, the acquisition of super-profits over
and above those obtained by the 'pure* (i.e., non-combined) enter-
prises. Fourthly, it strengthens the position of the combined enter-
prises compared with that of 'pure' enterprises in the competitive
struggle in periods of serious depression, when the fall in prices of raw
materials does not keep pace with the fall in prices of manufactured
articles."*
The German bourgeois economist, Heymann, who has written a book
especially on "mixed," that is, combined, enterprises in the German
iron industry, says: "Pure enterprises perish, crushed between the high
price of raw material arid the low price of the finished product." Thus
we get the following picture:
"There remain, on the one hand, the great coal companies, pro-
ducing millions of tons yearly, strongly organized in their coal syn-
dicate, and on the other, the great steel works, closely allied to the
* Rudolf Hilferding, Das Finanzkapital (Finance Capital), Vienna, second
edition, p. 254.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 663
coal mines, having their own steel syndicate* These giant enter*
pdseS, producing 400,000 tons of steel per annum, with correspond-
ingly extensive coal, ore and blast furnace plants, as well as the
manufacturing of finished goods, employing 10,000 workers quar-
tered in company houses, sometimes owning their own ports and rail-
roads, are today the standard type of German iron and steel plant*
And concentration still continues. Individual enterprises are be-
coming larger and larger. An ever- increasing number of enterprises
in one given industry, or in several different industries, join together
in giant combines, backed up and controlled by half a dozen Berlin
banks. In the German mining industry, the truth of the teachings of
Karl Marx on concentration is definitely proved, at any rate in a
country like ours where it is protected by tariffs and freight rates.
The German mining industry is ripe for expropriation."*
Such is the conclusion which a conscientious bourgeois economist, and
such are exceptional, had to arrive at. It must be noted that he seems to
place Germany in a special category because her industries are protected by
high tariffs. But the concentration of industry and the formation of monop-
olist manufacturers' combines, cartels, syndicates, etc., could only be ac-
celerated by these circumstances. It is extremely important to note that in
free-trade England, concentration also leads to monopoly, although
somewhat later and perhaps in another form. Professor Hermann Levy, in
his special work of research entitled Monopolies, Cartels and Trusts, based
on data on British economic development, writes as follows:
"In Great Britain it is the size of the enterprise and its capacity
which harbour a monopolist tendency. This, for one thing, is due to
the fact that the great investment of capital per enterprise, once the
concentration movement has commenced, gives rise to increasing
demands for new capital for the new enterprises and thereby renders
their launching more difficult. Moreover (and this seems to us to be
the more important point) every new enterprise that wants to keep
pace with the gigantic enterprises that have arisen on the basis of the
process of concentration would produce such an enormous quantity
of surplus goods that it could only dispose of them either by being
able to sell them profitably as a result of an enormous increase in
demand or by immediately forcing down prices to a level that would
be unprofitable both for itself and for the monopoly combines."
In England, unlike other countries where protective tariffs facilitate
the formation of cartels, monopolist alliances of entrepreneurs, cartels and
* Hans Gideon Heymann, Die gemischten Werke im deutschen Gtosseiaenge*
werbe (Combined Plants in the German Big Iron Industry), Stuttgart, 1904, pp.
256 and 278.
664 V. I. LENIN
trusts, arise in the majority of cases only when the number of competing
enterprises is reduced to "a couple of dozen or so." "Here the influence
of the concentration movement on the formation of large industrial
monopolies in a whole sphere of industry stands out with crystal clarity."*
Fifty years ago, when Marx was writing Capital, free competition ap-
peared to most economists to be a "natural law. "Official science tried, by a
conspiracy of silence, to kill the works of Marx, which by a theoretical and
historical analysis of capitalism showed that free competition gives rise to
the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of
development, leads to monopoly. Today, monopoly has become a fact. The
economists are writing mountains of books in which they describe the
diverse manifestations of monopoly, and continue to declare in chorus that
"Marxism is refuted." But facts are stubborn things, as the English proverb
says, and they have to be reckoned with, whether we like it or not. The
facts show that differences between capitalist countries, e. g.9 in the matter
of protection or free trade, only give rise to insignificant variations in
the form of monopolies or in the moment of their appearance; and that
the rise of monopolies, as the result of the concentration of production, is
a general and fundamental law of the present stage of development of
capitalism.
For Europe, the time when the new capitalism definitely superseded
the old can be established with fair precision: it was the beginning of the
twentieth century. In one of the latest compilations on the history of the
"formation of monopolies," we read:
"A few isolated examples of capitalist monopoly could be cited
from the period preceding 1860; in these could be discerned the em-
bryo of the forms that are common today; but all this undoubtedly
represents pre-history. The real beginning of modern monopoly goes
back, at the earliest, to the 'sixties. The first important period of
development of monopoly commenced with the international indus-
trial depression of the 'seventies and lasted until the beginning of
the 'nineties. ... If we examine the question on a European scale,
we will find that the development of free competition reached its
apex in the 'sixties and 'seventies. Then it was that England com-
pleted the construction of its old style capitalist organization. In
Germany, this organization had entered into a fierce struggle with
handicraft and domestic industry, and had begun to create for itself
its own forms of existence. ..."
"The great revolutionization commenced with the crash of 1873,
or rather, the depression which followed it and which, with hardly
discernible interruptions in the early 'eighties, and the unusually
* Hermann Levy, Monopole, Kartelle und Trusts (Monopolies, Cartels and
Trusts), Jena, 1909, pp. 286, 290, 298.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM C55
violent, but short-lived boom about 1889, marks twenty-two years
of European economic history. . . . During the short boom of
1889-90, the system of cartels was widely resorted to in order to
take advantage of the favourable business conditions. An ill-con-
sidered policy drove prices still higher than would have been the case
otherwise and nearly all these cartels perished ingloriously in the
smash. Another five-year period of bad trade and low prices fol-
lowed, but a new spirit reigned in industry; the depression was no
longer regarded as something to betaken for granted: it was re-
garded as nothing more than a pause before another boom.
"The cartel movement entered its second epoch: instead of being
a transitory phenomenon, the cartels became one of the foundations
of economic life. They are winning one field after another, primarily,
the raw materials industry. At the beginning of the 'nineties
the cartel system had already acquired — in the organization of the
coke syndicate on the model of which the coal syndicate was later
formed — a cartel technique which could hardly be improved. For the
first time the great boom at the close of the nineteenth century and
the crisis of 1900-03 occurred entirely — in the mining and iron indus-
tries at least — under the aegis of the cartels. And while at that time
it appeared to be something novel, now the general public takes
it for granted that large spheres of economic life have been, as a
general rule, systematically removed from the realm of free com-
petition."*
Thus, the principal stages in the history of monopolies are the following:
1) 1860-70, the highest stage, the apex of development of free competition;
monopoly is in the barely discernible, embryonic stage. 2) After the crisis
of 1873, a wide zone of development of cartels; but they are still the excep-
tion. They are not yet durable. They are still a transitory phenomenon.
3) The boom at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-03.
Cartels become one of the foundations of the whole of economic life.
Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism.
Cartels came to an agreement on the conditions of sale, terms of pay-
ment, etc. They divide the markets among themselves. They fix the quan-
tity of goods to be produced. They fix prices. They divide the profits among
the various enterprises, etc.
* Th. Vogelstein: Die finanzielle Organisation der kapitalistischen Industrie
und die Monopolbildungen (Financial Organization of the Capitalist Industry and
the Formation of Monopolies) in Orundriss der Sozialdkonomik (Outline of Social
Economics) Tubingen, 1914, Sec. VI, p. 222 et seq. See also by the same author:
Kapitalistische Organisationsformen in der modernen Grossindustrie (Capitalist Orga-
nizational Forms in Modern Big Industry, Vol. I). Organisationsformen der Eisenin-
dustrie und der Textilindustrie in^England und Amerika (The Organizational Forms
of the Iron and Textile Industry* of England and America, Vol. I, Leipzig, 1910).
666 V.I.LENIN
The number of cartels in Germany was estimated at about 250 in 1896
and at 385 in 1905, with about 12,000 firms participating.* But it is gener-
ally recognized that these figures are underestimations. From the statis-
tics of German industry for 1907 we quoted above, it is evident that even
12,000 large enterprises control certainly more than half the steam and
electric power used in the country. In the United States of America, the
number of trusts in 1900 was 185 and in 1907, 250. American statistics divide
all industrial enterprises into three categories, according to whether they
belong to individuals, to private firms or to corporations. These latter in
1904 comprised 23.6 per cent, and in 1909, 25.9 per cent (i.e., more than
one-fourth of the total industrial enterprises in the country). These em-
ployed in 1904, 70. 6 per cent, and in 1909, 75.6 per cent (i.e., more than
three-fourths) of the total wage earners. Their output amounted at these
two dates to $ 10,900,000,000 and to $ 16,300,000,000, i.e., to 73.7 per
cent and 79.0 per cent of the total respectively.
Not infrequently cartels and trusts concentrate in their hands seven or
eight-tenths of the total output of a given branch of industry. The Rhine-
Westphalian Coal Syndicate, at its foundation in 1893, controlled 86.7
per cent of the total coal output of the area. In 1910, it controlled 95.4 per
cent.** The monopoly so created assures enormous profits, and leads to the
formation of technical productive units of formidable magnitude.
The famous Standard Oil Company in the United States was founded in
1900:
"It has an authorized capital of $150,000,000. It issued $100,000,000
common and $106,000,000 preferred stock. From 1900 to 1907 the
following dividends were paid on this stock: 48, 48, 45, 44, 36, 40,
40, 40 per cent in the respective years, i.e., in all, $367,000,000.
From 1882 to 1907, out of a total net profits to the amount of
$889,000,000, $606,000,000 were distributed in dividends, and the
rest went to reserve capital. . . .***Inl907 the various works of
the United States Steel Corporation employed no less than 210,180
* Dr. Riesser, Die deutschen Orossbanken und ihre Konzentration im Zusam-
merihange mil der Entwicklung der Gesamtwirtschaft in Deutschland (The German
Big Banks and Their Concentration in Connection with the Development of the General
Econdmyin Germany), fourth edition, 1912, pp. 148-9 ;c/. also Robert Liefmann, Kar-
telle und Trusts und die Weiterbildung der volkswirtschaftlichen Organisation (Cartels
and Trusts and the Further Development of Economic Organization), second edition,
1910, p. 25.
** Dr. Fritz Kestner, Der Organisations zwang. Sine Untersuchung fiber die
Kdmpfe zwischen Kartellen und Auasenseitern (The Compulsion to Organize.
An Investigation of the Struggles between Cartels and Outsiders), Berlin, 1912,
p. 11.
*** Robert Liefmann, Beteiligungs* und Finanzierungsgesellschaften. Eine
Studie uber den modemen Kapitalismus und das Effektenwesen (Holding and Finance
Companies — A Study in Modern Capitalism and Securities), first edition, Jena,
1909, p. 212.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 6&?
workers and other employees. The largest enterprise in the German
mining industry, the Gelsenkirchen Mining Company (Gelsenkir-
chener Bergwerksgesellschaft) employed in 1908, 46,048 persons."*
In 1902, the United States Steel Corporation had already produced
9,000,000 tons of steel.** Its output constituted in 1901, 66.3 per
cent, and in 1908, 56.1 per cent of the total output of steel in the
United States.*** The output of mineral ore was 43.9 percent and
46.3 per cent respectively.
The report of the American Government Commission on Trusts states:
"The superiority of the trust over competitors is due to the magni-
tude of its enterprises and their excellent technical equipment.
Since its inception, the Tobacco Trust has devoted all its efforts to
the substitution of mechanical for manual labour on an extensive
scale. With this end in view it bought up all patents that had any-
thing to do with the manufacture of tobacco and spent enormous sums
for this purpose. Many of these patents at first proved to be of no use,
and had to be modified by the engineers employed by the trust. At
the end of 1906, two subsidiary companies were formed solely to
acquire patents. With the same object in view, the trust built its
own foundries, machine shops and repair shops. One of these estab-
lishments, that in Brooklyn, employs on the average 300 workers;
here experiments are carried out on inventions concerning the manu-
facture of cigarettes, cheroots, snuff, tinfoil for packing, boxes, etc.
Here, also, inventions are perfected. . . .**** Other trusts also em-
ploy so-called developing engineers whose business it is to devise new
methods of production and to test technical improvements. The
United States Steel Corporation grants big bonuses to its workers and
engineers for all inventions suitable for raising technical efficiency,
or for reducing cost of production."*****
In German large-scale industry, e.g., in the chemical industry, which
has developed so enormously during these last few decades, the promotion
of technical improvement is organized in the same way. By 1908 the process
of concentration of production had already given rise to two main "groups"
which, in their way, were in the nature of monopolies. First these groups
represented "dual alliances" of two pairs of big factories, each having a cap •
* Ibid., p. 218.
•* Dr. S. Tschierschky, Kartelle und Trusts, Gottingen, 1903, p. 13.
*** Th. Vogelstein, Organisations formen (Forms of Organization), p. 275.
•*** Report of the Commission of Corporations on the Tobacco Industry, Wash-
ington, 1909, p. 266, cited according to Dr. Paul Tafel, Die nordamerikanischen
Trusts und ihre Wirkungen auf den Fortschritt der Technik (North American Trusts
and Their Effect on Technical Progress), Stuttgart, 1913, p. 48.
***** Dr. P. Tafel, ibid., pp. 48-49.
42—685
668 V. I. LENIN
ital of from twenty to twenty-one million marks: on the one hand, the
former Meister Factory at Hochst and the Cassella Factory at Frankfurt am
Main; and on the other hand, the aniline and soda factory at Ludwigshafen
and the former Bayer factory at Elberfeld. In 1905, one of these groups, and
in 1908 the other group, each concluded a separate agreement with yet an-
other big factory. The result was the formation of two "triple alliances,"
each with a capital of from forty to fifty million marks. And these "alli-
ances*'began to come "close" to one another, to reach "an understanding"
about prices, etc.*
Competition becomes transformed into monopoly. The result is immense
progress in the socialization of production. In particular, the process of
technical invention and improvement becomes socialized.
This is no longer the old type of free competition between manufacturers,
scattered and out of touch with one another, and producing for an unknown
market. Concentration has reached the point at which it is possible to make
an approximate estimate of all sources of raw materials ( for example, the
iron ore deposits) of a country and even, as we shall see, of several coun-
tries, or of the whole world. Not only are such estimates made, but these
sources are captured by gigantic monopolist combines. An approximate
estimate of the capacity of markets is also made, and the combines "divide"
them up amongst themselves by agreement. Skilled labour is monopolized,
the best engineers are engaged; the means of transport are captured: rail-
ways in America, shipping companies in Europe and America. Capitalism
in its imperialist stage arrives at the threshold of the most complete
socialization of production. In spite of themselves, the capitalists are
dragged as it were, into a new social order, a transitional social order from
complete free competition to complete socialization.
Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The so-
cial means of production remain the private property of a few. The general
framework of formally recognized free competition remains, but the yoke
of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times
heavier, more burdensome and intolerable.
The German economist, Kestner, has written a book especially on the
subject of "the struggle between the cartels and outsiders," i.e., enterprises
outside the cartels. He entitled his work Compulsory Organization, al-
though, in order to present capitalism in its true light, he should have given
it the title: "Compulsory Submission to Monopolist Combines." This book
is edifying if only for the list it gives of the modern and civilized methods
that monopolist combines resort to in their striving towards "organization."
They are as follows: 1. Stopping supplies of raw materials ("one of the most
important methods of compelling adherence to the cartel"); 2. Stopping the
* Riesser, op. cit.t third edition, pp. 547-48. The newspapers (June 1916) report
the formation of a new gigantic trust which is to combine the chemical industry
of Germany.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST .STAGE OF CAPITALISM 659
supply of labour by means of "alliances" (i.e.y of agreements between
employers and the trade unions by which the latter permit their members to
work only in cartelized enterprises); 3. Cutting off deliveries; 4. Closing of
trade outlets; 5. Agreements with the buyers, by which the latter under-
take to trade only with the cartels; 6. Systematic price cutting (to ruin "out-
side" firms, i.e.9 those which refuse to submit to the monopolists. Millions
are spent in order to sell goods for a certain time below their cost price;
there were instances when the price of benzine was thus lowered from
40 to 22 marks, i.e., reduced almost by half!); 7. Stopping credits;
8. Boycott.
This is no longer competition between small and large-scale industry,
or between technically developed and backward enterprises. We see here
the monopolies throttling those which do not submit to them, to their yoke,
to their dictation. This is how this process is reflected in the mind of
a bourgeois economist:
"Even in the purely economic sphere," writes Kestner, "a certain
change is taking place from commercial activity in the old sense of
the word towards organizational-speculative activity. The greatest
success no longer goes to the merchant whose technical and commer-
cial experience enables him best of all to understand the needs of the
buyer, and who is able to discover and effectively 'awaken' a latent
demand; it goes to the speculative genius [?!] who knows how to
estimate, or even only to sense in advance the organizational devel-
opment and the possibilities of connections between individual
enterprises and the banks."*
Translated into ordinary human language this means that the develop-
ment of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity
production still "reigns" and continues to be regarded as the basis of eco-
nomic life, it has in reality been undermined and the big profits go to the
"geniuses" of financial manipulation. At the basis of these swindles and
manipulations lies socialized production; but the immense progress of
humanity, which achieved this socialization, goes to benefit the specula-
tors. We shall see later how "on these grounds" reactionary, petty-
bourgeois critics of capitalist imperialism dream of going back to "free,"
"peaceful," and "honest" competition.
"The prolonged raising of prices which results from the formation
of cartels," says Kestner, "has hitherto been observed only in rela-
tion to the most important means of production, particularly coal,
iron and potassium, but has never been observed for any length of
time in relation to manufactured goods. Similarly, the increase in
* Kestner, op. cit., p. 241.— Ed.
660 V. L LENIN
profits resulting from that has been limited only to the industries
which produce means of production. To this observation we must
add that the raw materials industry not only has secured advantages
from the cartel formation in regard to the growth of income and
profitableness, to the detriment of the finished goods industry, but
that it has secured also a dominating position over the latter, which
did not exist under free competition."*
The words which we have italicized reveal the essence of the case which
the bourgeois economists admit so rarely and so unwillingly, and which the
modern defenders of opportunism, led by K. Kautsky, so zealously try to
evade and brush aside. Domination, and violence that is associated with it,
such are the relationships that are most typical of the "latest phase of cap-
italist development"; this is what must inevitably result, and has resulted,
from the formation of all-powerful economic monopolies.
We will give one more example of the methods employed by the cartels.
. It is particularly easy for cartels and monopolies to arise when it is possible
to capture all the sources of raw materials, or at least, the most important
of them. It would be wrong, however, to assume that monopolies do not
arise in other industries in which it is impossible to corner the sources of raw
materials. The cement industry, for instance, can find its raw materials
everywhere. Yet in Germany it is strongly cartelized. The cement manufac-
turers have formed regional syndicates: South German, Rhine- Westphalian,
etc. The prices fixed are monopoly prices: 230 to 280 marks a carload (at a
cost price of 180 marks I). The enterprises pay a dividend of from 12 per
cent to 16 per cent — and let us not forget that the "geniuses" of modern
speculation know how to pocket big profits besides those they draw by way
of dividends. Now, in order to prevent competition in such a profitable
industry, the monopolists resort to sundry stratagems. For example, they
spread disquieting rumours about the situation in their industry. Anony-
mous warnings are published in the newspapers, like the following: "Inves-
tors, don't place your capital in the cement industry I" They buy up "out-
siders" (those outside the syndicates) and pay them "indemnities" of
60,000, 80,000 and even 150,000 marks.** Monopoly everywhere hews a
path for itself without scruple as to the means, from "modestly" buying
off competitors to the American device of "employing" dynamite against
them.
The statement that cartels can abolish crises is a fable spread by bour-
geois economists who at all costs desire to place capitalism in a favourable
light. On the contrary, when monopoly appears in certain branches of
industry, it increases and intensifies the anarchy inherent in capitalist
production as a whole. The disparity between the development of agricul-
* Ibid., p. 254.
** Ludwig Eschwege. Zement in Die Bank, 1909, Vol. I, p. 115 et seq.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 661
ture and that of industry, which is characteristic of capitalism, is increased.
The privileged position of the most highly cartelized industry, so-called
heavy industry, especially coal and iron, causes "a still greater lack of
concerted organization" in other branches of production — as Jeidels, the
author of one of the best works on the relationship of the German big banks
to industry, admits.*
"The more developed an economic system is," writes Liefmann,
one of the most unblushing apologists of capitalism, "the more it
resorts to risky enterprises, or enterprises abroad, to those which
need a great deal of time to develop, or finally, to those which are
only of local importance." **
The increased risk is connected in the long run with the prodigious
increase of capital, which overflows the brim, as it were, flows abroad, etc.
At the same time the extremely rapid rate of technical progress gives rise
more and more to disturbances in the co-ordination between the various
spheres of national economy, to anarchy and crises. Liefmann is obliged to
admit that:
"In all probability mankind will see further important technical
revolutions in the near future which will also affect the organization
of the economic system. . . . (For example, electricity and aviation)...
As a general rule, in such periods of radical economic change, spec-
ulation develops on a large scale."***
Crises of every kind — economic crises more frequently, but not only
these — in their turn increase very considerably the tendency towards
concentration and monopoly. In this connection, the following reflections
of Jeidels on the significance of the crisis of 1900, which, as we have
already seen, marked the turning point in the history of modern monopoly,
are exceedingly instructive.
"Side by side with the giant plants in the basic industries, the
crisis of 1900 found many plants organized on lines that today would
be considered obsolete, the 'pure* [non-combined] plants, which had
arisen on the crest of the industrial boom. The fall in prices and the
falling off in demand put these 'pure* enterprises into a precarious
position, which did not affect the big combined enterprises at all or
* Otto Jeidels, Das Verhdltnis der deutschen Grossbanken zur Industrie, mit
besondercr Berucksichtigung der Eisenindustrie (The Relationship of the German
Big Banks to Industry, with Special Reference to the Iron Industry), Leipzig, 1905,
p. 271.
** Robert Liefmann, Beteiligungs- und Finanzierungsgesellschaften (Holding
and Finance Companies), p. 434.
•** Ibid., p. 466.
662 V. I. LENIN
only affected them for a very short time. As a consequence of this the
crisis of 1900 resulted in a far greater concentration of industry than
former crises, like that of 1873. The latter crisis also produced a sort
of selection of the best equipped enterprises, but owing to the level
of technical development at that time, this selection could not place
the firms which successfully emerged from the crisis in a position of
monopoly. Such a durable monopoly exists to a high degree in the
gigantic enterprises in the modern iron and steel and electrical
industries, and to a lesser degree, in the engineering industry and
certain metal, transport and other branches in consequence of
their complicated technique, their extensive organizations and the
magnitude of their capital."*
Monopoly! This is the last word in the "latest phase of capitalist
development." But we shall only have a very insufficient, incomplete,
and poor notion of the real power and the significance of modern monopolies
if we do not take into consideration the part played by the banks.
II. THE BANKS AND THEIR NEW ROLE
The principal and primary function of banks is to serve as an intermedi-
ary in the making of payments. In doing so they transform inactive money
capital into active capital, that is into capital producing a profit; they
collect all kinds of money revenues and place them at the disposal of the
capitalist class.
As banking develops and becomes concentrated in a small number of esi ab-
lishments the banks become transformed, and instead of being modest in-
termediaries they become powerful monopolies having at their command al-
most the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists and small busi-
ness men and also a large part of the means of production and of the sources
of raw materials of the given country and in a number of countries. The
transformation of numerous modest intermediaries into a handful of monop-
olists represents one of the fundamental processes in the transformation of
capitalism into capitalist imperialism. For this reason we must first of all
deal with the concentration of banking.
In 1907-08, the combined deposits of the German joint -stock banks, each
having a capital of more than a million marks, amounted to 7,000,000,000
marks, while in 1912-13, they amounted to 9,800,000,000 marks. Thus in
five years their deposits increased by 40 per cent. Of the 2,800,000,000
increase, 2,750,000,000 was divided amongst 57 banks, each having a cap-
* Jeidels, op. cit., p. 108.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM
ital of more than 10,000,000 marks. The distribution of the deposits between
big and small banks was as follows:*
PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL DEPOSITS
Year
In 9 big
Berlin
banks
In the other 48
banks with a cap-
ital of more than
10 million marks
In 115 banks with
a capital of 1 to
10 million marks
In the small
banks with a cap-
ital of less than
1 million marks
1907-08 . . .
47
32.5
16.5
4
1912-13 . . .
49
36
12
3
The small banks are being pushed aside by the big banks, of which nine
concentrate in their hands almost half the total deposits. But we have left
out of account many important details, for instance, the transformation of
numerous small banks practically into branches of big banks, etc. Of this
we shall speak later on.
At the end of 1913, Schulze-Gaevernitz estimated the deposits in the
nine big Berlin banks at 5,100,000,000 marks, out of a total of about
10,000,000,000 marks. Taking into account not only the deposits, but the
total resources of these banks, this author wrote:
"At the end of 1909, the nine big Berlin banks, together with
their affiliated banks controlled 11,276,000,000 marks, that is, about
83 per cent of the total German bank capital. The Deutsche Bank,
which together with its affiliated banks controls nearly 3,000,000,000
marks, represents, parallel with the Prussian State Railway Admin-
istration, the biggest and also the most decentralized accumulation
of capital in the old world."**
We have emphasized the reference to the "affiliated" banks because
this is one of the most important features of modern capitalist concentra-
tion. Large-scale enterprises, especially the banks, not only completely
absorb small ones, but also "join" them to themselves, subordinate them,
bring them into their "own" group or "concern" (to use the technical term)
by having "holdings" in their capital, by purchasing or exchanging shares,
by controlling them through a system of credits, etc., etc. Professor Lief-
mann has written a voluminous "work" of about 500 pages describing mod-
* Alfred Lansburgh, Funf Jahredeutsches Bankwesen (Five Years of German
Banking) in Die Bank, 1913, II, pp. 726-28.
** Schulze-Gaevernitz, Die deutsche Kreditbank, Grundriss der Sozialdkono mtk
(The German Credit Bank in Outline of Social Economics), Scc.V, Part II, Tii bingen,
1915, pp. 12 and 137.
664
V. I. LENIN
cm "holding and finance companies,"* unfortunately adding "theoreti-
cal" reflections of a very poor quality to what is frequently partly digested
raw material. To what results this "holding" system leads in regard to
concentration is best illustrated in the book written on the big German
banks by the banker Riesser. But before examining his data, we will quote
an example of the "holding" system.
The Deutsche Bank "group" is one of the biggest, if not the biggestbank-
ing group. In order to trace the main threads which connect all the banks
in this group, it is necessary to distinguish between "holdings" of the first,
second and third degree, or what amounts to the same thing, between
dependence (of the lesser establishments on the Deutsche Bank) in the first,
second and third degree. We then obtain the following picture:**
THE DEUTSCHE BANK PARTICIPATES:
Permanently
For an
indefinite
period
Occasionally
Total
1st degree . .
in 17 banks
in 5 banks
in 8 banks
in 30 banks
2nd degree . .
of which 9
participate in
34 others
—
of which 5
participate
in 14 others
of which 14
participate
in 48 others
3rd degree . .
of which 4
participate in
7 others
—
of which 2
participate
in 2 others
of which 6
participate
in 9 others
Included in the eight banks dependent on the Deutsche Bank in the
"first degree," "occasionally," there are three foreign banks: one Austrian
(the Wiener Bankverein) and two Russian (the Siberian Commercial
Bank and the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade). Altogether, the Deutsche
Bank group comprises, directly and indirectly, partially and totally, no
less than 87 banks; and the capital — its own and others which it controls
— is estimated at between two and three billion marks.
It is obvious that a bank which stands at the head of such a group, and
which enters into agreement with half a dozen other banks only slightly
smaller than itself for the purpose of conducting big and profitable opera-
tions like floating state loans is no longer a mere "intermediary" but
a combine of a handful of monopolists.
* Robert Licfmann, Beteiligunga- und Finanzierungageaellachaften.EineStudie
fiber den modernen Kapitaliamus und das Effektenweaen (Holding and Finance
Companies — A Study in Modern Capitaliam and Securities), first edition, Jena,
1909, p. 212.
** A. L ans burgh, Das Beteiligungssyatem im deutachen Bankwesen (The Holding
System in German Banking), in Die Bank, 1910, I, pp. 500 et seq.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM
666
The rapidity with which the concentration of banking proceeded in
Germany at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth
centuries is shown by the following data which we quote in an abbreviated
form from Riesser:
SIX BIG BERLIN BANKS
Year
Branches in
Germany
Deposit banks
and exchange
offices
Constant hold-
ings in German
joint-stock banks
Total establish-
ments
189B
16
14
1
42
1900 . . . . '
1911
21
304
40
276
8
63
80
450
We see the rapid extension of a close network of canals which cover the
whole country, centralizing all capital and all revenues, transforming thou-
sands and thousands of scattered economic enterprises into a single nation-
al, capitalist, and then into an international, capitalist, economic unit.
The "decentralisation" that Schulze-Gaevernitz, as an exponent of modern
bourgeois political economy, speaks of in the passage previously quoted,
really means the subordination of an increasing number of formerly rela-
tively "independent," or rather, strictly local economic units, to a single
centre. In reality it is centralization, the increase in the role, the importance
and the power of monopolist giants.
In the older capitalist countries this "banking network" is still more
close. In Great Britain (including Ireland), in 1910, there were in all 7,151
branches of banks. Four big banks had more than 400 branches each (from
447 to 689); four had more than 200 branches each, and eleven more than
100 each.
In France, three big banks (Credit Lyonnais, the Comptoir National
d'Escompte and the Societe Generale) extended their operations and their
network of branches in the following manner.*
Number of branches and offices
Capital in million francs
Year
In the pro-
vinces
In Paris
Total
Own capital
Borrowed
capital
1870 ....
47
17
64
200
427
1890 ....
192
66
258
265
1,245
1909 ....
1,033
196
1,229
887
4,363
* Eugen Kaufmann,Da*/ran25«t*c^e Bankwesen, mit besonderer BerucksicHtigung
far drei Depositen-Qrosabanken (French Banking), Tubingen, 1911, pp. 356 and 362.
666
V. I. LENIN
In order to show the "connections" of a big modern bank, Riesser gives
the following figures of the number of letters dispatched and received by the
Disconto-Gesellschaft, one of the biggest banks in Germany and in the
world, the capital of which amounted to 300,000,000 marks in 1914:
Year
Letters received
Letters
dispatched
1852
6,135
6,292
1870
85,800
87,513
1900
533,102
626,043
In 1875, the big Paris bank, the Credit Lyonnais, had 28,535 accounts.
In 1912 it had 633,539.*
These simple figures show perhaps better than long explanations how
the concentration of capital and the growth of their turnover is radically
changing the significance of the banks. Scattered capitalists are transformed
into a single collective capitalist. When carrying the current accounts
of a few capitalists, the banks, as it were, transact a purely technical and
exclusively auxiliary operation. When, however, those operations grow
to enormous dimensions we find that a handful of monopolists control all
the operations, both commercial and industrial, of the whole of capitalist
society. They can, by means of their banking connections, by running cur-
rent accounts and transacting other financial operations, first ascertain
exactly the position of the various capitalists, then control them, influence
them by restricting or enlarging, facilitating or hindering their credits, and
finally they can entirely determine their fate, determine their income, de-
prive them of capital, or, on the other hand, permit them to increase their
capital rapidly and to enormous dimensions, etc.
We have just mentioned the 300,000,000 marks ' capital of the Disconto-
Gesellschaft of Berlin. The increase of the capital of this bank was one of
the incidents in the struggle for hegemony between two of the biggest Berlin
banks — the Deutsche Bank and the Disconto,
In 1870, the Deutsche Bank, a new enterprise, had a capital of only
15,000,000 marks, while that of the Disconto was 30,000,000 marks. In 1908,
the first had a capital of 200,000,000, while the second had 170,000,000.
In 1914, the Deutsche Bank increased its capital to 250,000,000 and the
Disconto, by merging with a very important bank, the Schaffhausenscher
Bankverein, increased its capital to 300,000,000. And of course, while
this struggle for hegemony goes on the two banks more and more frequently
conclude "agreements" of an increasingly durable character with
* Jean Lescure, L'epargne en France (Savings in France), Paris, 1914, p. 52.
IMPERIALISM* THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 667
each other. This development of banking compels specialists in the
study of banking questions — who regard economic questions from a
standpoint which does not in the least exceed the bounds of the most
moderate and cautious bourgeois reformism — to arrive at the following
conclusions:
The German review, Die Bank, commenting on the increase of the
capital of the Disconto-Gesellschaft to 300,000,000 marks writes:
"Other banks will follow this same path and in time the three
hundred men, who today govern Germany economically, will grad-
ually be reduced to fifty, twenty-five or still fewer. It cannot be
expected that this new move towards concentration will be confined
to banking. The close relations that exist between certain banks na-
turally involve the bringing together of the manufacturing concerns
which they favour. . . . One fine morning we shall wake up in sur-
prise to see nothing but trusts before our eyes, and to find ourselves
faced with the necessity of substituting st*,te monopolies for private
monopolies. However, we have nothing to reproach ourselves with,
except with us having allowed things to follow their own course,
slightly accelerated by the manipulation of stocks."*
This is an example of the impotence of bourgeois journalism which
differs from bourgeois science only in that the latter is less sincere
and strives to obscure essential things, to conceal the wood by trees. To
be "surprised" at the results of concentration, to "reproach" the govern-
ment of capitalist Germany, or capitalist "society" ("us"), to fear that
the introduction of stocks and shares might "accelerate" concentration
in the same way as the German "cartel specialist" Tschierschky fears the
American trusts and "prefers" the German cartels on the grounds that
they may not, like the trusts, "accelerate technical and economic pro-
gress to an excessive degree" ** — is not this impotence?
But facts remain facts. There are no trusts in Germany; there are "only"
cartels — but Germany is governed by not more than three hundred magnates
of capital, and the number of these is constantly diminishing. At all
events, banks in all capitalist countries, no matter what the law in regard
to them may be, greatly intensify and accelerate the process of concentra-
tion of capital and the formation of monopolies.
The banking system, Marx wrote half a century ago in Capital, "pre-
sents indeed the form of common bookkeeping and distribution of means
of production on a social scale, but only the form." The figures we have
quoted on the growth of bank capital, on the increase in the number of the
branches and offices of the biggest banks, the increase in the number of
* A. Lansburgh, Die Bank mit den 300 Millionen (The 300 Million Mark
Bank), in Die Bank, 1914, I, p. 426.
** S. Tschierschky, op. cit., p. 128.
V. I. LENIN
their accounts, etc., present a concrete picture of this "common book-
keeping" of the whole capitalist class; and not only of the capitalists, for
the banks collect, even though temporarily, all kinds of financial rev-
enues of small businessmen, office clerks, and of a small upper stratum of
the working class. It is "common distribution of means of production" that,
from the formal point of view, grows out of the development of modern
banks, the most important of which, numbering from three to six in France,
and from six to eight in Germany, control billions and billions. In point
of fact, however, the distribution of means of production is by no means
"common," but private, i.e., it conforms to the interests of big capital,
and primarily, of very big monopoly capital, which operates under condi-
tions in which the masses of the population live in want, in which the whole
development of agriculture hopelessly lags behind the development of
industry, while within industry itself the "heavy industries" exact tribute
from all other branches of industry.
The savings banks and post offices are beginning to compete with the
banks in the matter of socializing capitalist economy; they are more "de-
centralized," i.e., their influence extends to a greater number of localities,
to more remote places, to wider sections of the population. An American
commission has collected the following data on the comparative growth of
deposits in banks and savings banks:*
DEPOSITS (IN BILLIONS OF MARKS)
Year
England
France
Germany
Banks
Savings
Banks
Banks
Savings
Banks
Banks
Credit
Societies
Savings
Banks
1880
8.4
12.4
23.2
1.6
2.0
4.2
?
1.5
3.7
0.9
2.1
4.2
0.5
1.1
7.1
0.4
0.4
2.2
2.6
4.5
13.9
1888
1908
As they pay interest at the rate of 4 per cent and 4*/4 pet cent on depos-
its, the savings banks must seek "profitable" investments for their capital,
they must deal in bills, mortgages, etc. The boundaries between the banks
and the savings banks "become more and more obliterated." The Chambers,
of Commerce at Bochum and Erfurt, for example, demand that savings
banks be prohibited from engaging in "purely" banking business, such as
discounting bills . They demand the limitation of the "banking" operations of
the post office.** The banking magnates seem to be afraid that state monop-
* Cf. Statistics of the National Monetary Commission ^ quoted in Die Bank*
1910, I, p. 1200.
** Die Bank, 1913, II, pp. 811, 1022; 1914, p. 743.
IMPERIALISM. THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 669
V
oly will steal upon them from an unexpected quarter. It goes without say-
ing, however, that this fear is no more than the expression, as it were, of the
rivalry between two department managers in the same office; for, on the
one hand, the billions entrusted to the savings banks are in the final anal-
ysis actually controlled by these very same bank magnates, while, on the
other hand, state monopoly in capitalist society is nothing more than
a means of increasing and guaranteeing the income of millionaires on the
verge of bankruptcy in one branch of industry or another.
The change from the old type of capitalism, in which free competition
predominated, to the new capitalism, in which monopoly reigns, is ex-
pressed, among other things, by a decrease in the importance of the
Stock Exchange. The German review, Die Bank, wrote:
"For a long time now, the Stock Exchange has ceased to be the
indispensable intermediary of circulation that it was formerly when
the banks were not yet able to place the bulk of new issues with their
clients."*
"Every bank is a Stock Exchange, and the bigger the bank, and
the more successful the concentration of banking, the truer does
this proverb become."**
"While formerly, in the 'seventies, the Stock Exchange, flushed with
the exuberance of youth" (a "subtle" allusion to the crash of 1873, and to
the company promotion scandals), "opened the era of the industrialization
of Germany, nowadays the banks and industry are able to 'do it alone.'
The domination of our big banks over the Stock Exchange ... is nothing
else than the expression of the completely organized German industrial
state. If the domain of the automatically functioning economic laws is thus
restricted, and if the domain consciously regulated by the banks is consider-
ably increased, the national economic responsibility of a very small num-
ber of guiding heads is infinitely increased," *** so wrote Professor Schulze-
Gaevernitz, an apologist of German imperialism, who is regarded as an
authority by the imperialists of all countries, and who tries to gloss over
a "detail," viz., that the "conscious regulation" of economic life by the
banks consists in the fleecing of the public by a handful of "completely
organized" monopolists. For the task of a bourgeois professor is not
to lay bare the mechanism of the financial system, or to divulge all the
machinations of the finance monopolists, but, rather to present them in
a favourable light.
* Die Bank, 1914, I, p. 316.
**Dr. Oskar Stillich, Geld- und Bankwesen (Money and Banking), Berlin,
1907, p. 169.
*** Schulze-Gaevernitz, Die deutsche Kreditbank, Grundrias der Sozialdkonomik
(German Credit Bank in Outline of Social Economics), Tubingen, 1915, pp. 12
and 137.
670 V. I. LENIN
In the same way, Riesser, a still more authoritative economist and him-
self a bank man, makes shift with meaningless phrases in order to explain
away undeniable facts. He writes:
". . . The Stock Exchange is steadily losing the feature which is
absolutely essential for national economy as a whole and for the cir-
culation of securities in particular — that of being an exact measuring-
rod and an almost automatic regulator of the economic movements
which converge on it." *
In other words, the old capitalism, the capitalism of free competition,
and its indispensable regulator, the Stock Exchange, are passing away. A
new capitalism has come to take its place, which bears obvious features of
something transitory, which is a mixture of free competition and monopoly.
The question naturally arises: to what is this new, "transitory" capitalism
leading? But the bourgeois scholars are afraid to raise this question.
"Thirty years ago, employers, freely competing against one an-
other, performed nine-tenths of the work connected with their busi-
nesses other than manual labour. At the present time, nine- tenths of
this business "brain work" is performed by officials. Banking is in
the forefront of this evolution."**
This admission by Schulze-Gaevernitz brings us once again to the ques-
tion as to what this new capitalism, capitalism in its imperialist stage, is
leading to.
Among the few banks which remain at the head of all capitalist economy
as a result of the process of concentration, there is naturally to be observed
an increasingly marked tendency towards monopolist agreements,
towards a bank trust. In America, there are not nine, but tn>o big banks,
those of the billionaires Rockefeller and Morgan, which control a capital of
eleven billion marks.*** In Germany the absorption of the Schaffhausen-
schcr Bankverein by the Disconto-Gesellschaft to which we referred above,
was commented on in the following terms by the Frankfurter Zeitung, one
of the organs of the Stock Exchange interests:
"The concentration movement of the banks is narrowing the cir-
cle of establishments from which it is possible to obtain credits, and
is consequently increasing the dependence of big industry upon a
small number of banking groups. In view of the internal links be-
tween industry and finance, the freedom of movement of manufac-
turing companies, in need of bank capital is restricted. For this rea-
* Riesser, op. cit.t fourth edition, p. 630.
** Die Bank, 1912, I, p. 435.
*** Schulfcc-Gaevernitz, Die deutsche Kreditbank, Qrundriss der Sozialdkonomik,
Tttbingen, 1915, pp. 12 and 137.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 671
son, big industry is watching the growing trustification of the banks
with mixed feelings. Indeed, we have repeatedly seen the beginnings
of certain agreements between the individual big banking concerns,
which aim at limiting competition."*
Again, the final word in the development of the banks is monopoly.
The close ties that exist between the banks and industry are the very
things that bring out most strikingly the new role of the banks. When a
bank discounts a bill for an industrial firm, opens a current account for
it, etc., these operations, taken separately, do not in the least diminish the
independence of the industrial firm, and the bank plays no other part than
that of a modest intermediary. But when such operations are multiplied
and become an established practice, when the bank "collects" in its own
hands enormous amounts of capital, when the running of a current account
for the firm in question enables the bank — and this is what happens — to
become better informed of the economic position of the client, then the
result is that the industrial capitalist becomes more completely dependent
on the bank.
At the same time a very close personal union is established between the
banks and the biggest industrial and commercial enterprises, the merging
of one with another through the acquisition of shares, through the appoint-
ment of bank directors to the Supervisory Boards (or Boards of Directors)
of industrial and commercial enterprises, and wee versa. The German econ-
omist, Jeidels, has compiled very complete data on this form of concen-
tration of capital and of enterprises. Six of the biggest Berlin banks were
represented by their directors in 344 industrial companies; and by their
board members in 407 other companies. Altogether, they supervised a to-
tal of 751 companies. In 289 of these companies they either had two of their
representatives on each of the respective Supervisory Boards, or held the
posts of chairmen. These industrial and commercial companies are engaged
in the most varied branches of industry: in insurance, transport, restau-
rants, theatres, art industry, etc. On the other hand, on the Supervisory
Boards of these six banks (in 1910) were fifty-one of the biggest manufac-
turers, including the director of Krupp, of the powerful "Hapag"
(Hamburg-America Line), etc. From 1895 to 1910, each of these six
banks participated in the share and bond issues of many hundreds of
industrial companies (the number ranging from 281 to 419).**
The "personal union" between the banks and industry is completed by
the "personal union" between both and the state.
"Seats on the Supervisory Board," writes Jeidels, "are freely
offered to persons of title, also to ex-civil servants, who are able to
do agreatdealtofacilitate"(l!) "relations with the authorities. . . .
* Quoted by Schulze-Gaevernitz, ibid., p. 155.
** Jeidels, op. cit.; Ricsser, op. cit. — Ed.
672 V. I. LENIN
Usually, on the Supervisory Board of a big bank, there is a member
of parliament or a Berlin city councillor."
The building, so to speak, of the great capitalist monopolies is there-
fore going on full steam ahead in all "natural" and "supernatural"
ways. A sort of division of labour amongst some hundreds of kings of
finance who reign over modern capitalist society is being systematically
developed.
"Simultaneously with this widening of the sphere of activity
of certain big industrialists" (sharing in the management of banks,
etc.) "and together with the allocation of provincial bank managers
to definite industrial regions, there is a growth of specialization
among the managers of the big banks. . . . Generally speaking, this
specialization is only conceivable when banking is conducted on a
large scale, and particularly when it has widespread connections with
industry. This division of labour proceeds along two lines: on the
one hand, the relations with industry as a whole are entrusted to one
manager, as his special function; on the other, each manager assumes
the supervision of several isolated enterprises, or enterprises with
allied interests, or in the same branch of industry, sitting on their
Boards of Directors" (capitalism has reached the stage of organ-
ized control of individual enterprises). "One specializes in German
industry, sometimes even in West German industry alone" (the West
is the most industrialized part of Germany). "Others specialize in
relations with foreign states and foreign industry, in information
about manufacturers, in Stock Exchange questions, etc. Besides,
each bank manager is often assigned a special industry or locality,
where he has a say as a member of the Board of Directors; one works
mainly on the Board of Directors of electric companies, another in
the chemical, brewing or sugar beet industry; a third in a few iso-
lated industrial enterprises, but at the same time in non-industrial,
i.e., insurance companies. ... It is certain that, as the extent and
diversification of the big banks' operations increase, the division
of labour among their directors also spreads, with the object and re-
sult of lifting them somewhat out of pure banking and making them
better experts, better judges of the general problems of industry and
the special problems of each branch of industry, thus making them
more capable of action within the respective bank's industrial sphere
of influence. This system is supplemented by the banks' endeavours
to have elected to their own Supervisory Boards, or to those of their
subsidiary banks, men who are experts in industrial affairs, such as
manufacturers, former officials, especially those formerly in the rail-
way service or in mining," etc.*
* Jeidels, op. cit., pp. 156-57.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM P?3
We find the same system, with only slight difference, in French bank-
ing. For instance, one of the three biggest French banks, the Credit
Lyonnais, has organized a financial research service (service des Etudes
financier es)y which permanently employs over fifty engineers, statisticians,
economists, lawyers, etc., at a cost of six or seven hundred thousand
francs annually. The service is in turn divided into eight sections, of
which one deals with industrial establishments, another with general
statistics, a third with railway and steamship companies, a fourth with
securities, a fifth with financial reports, etc.*
The result is twofold: on the one hand the merging, to an ever greater
extent, or, as N. Bukharin aptly calls it, the coalescence of bank and in-
dustrial capital; and on the other hand, a transformation of the banks into
institutions of a truly "universal character." On this question we think
it necessary to quote the exact terms used by Jeidels, who has best studied
the subject:
"An examination of the sum total of industrial relationships re-
veals the universal character of the financial establishments working
on behalf of industry. Unlike other kinds of banks and contrary to
the requirements often laid down in literature — according to which
banks ought to specialize in one kind of business or in one branch
of industry in order to maintain a firm footing — the big banks are
striving to make their industrial connections as varied and far-reach-
ing as possible, according to locality and branch of business, and
are striving to do away with the inequalities in the distribution of cap-
ital among localities and branches of business resulting from the
historical development of individual banking houses. . . . One ten-
dency is to make the ties with industry general; another tendency is to
make these ties durable and close. In the six big banks both these
tendencies are realized, not in full, but to a considerable extent
and to an equal degree."**
Quite often industrial and commercial circles complain of the "terrorism"
of the banks. And it is not surprising that such complaints are heard, for
the big banks "command," as will be seen from the following example:
on November 19, 1901, one of the big Berlin "D" banks (such is the name
given to the four biggest banks whose names begin with the letter D***)
* Bugen Kaufmann, Die Organisation der jranzdsischen Depositen-Groesbanken
(Organization of the Big French Deposit Banks), in Die Bank, 1909, II, pp. 854
and 855.
** Jeidels, op. cit., p. 180.
*** I.e., Deutsche Bank, Disconto-Gesellschaft, Dresdner Bank and Darm-
st&dter Bank.— Ed.
43-686
674 V. I. LENIN
wcote to the Board of Directors of the German Central Northwest Cement
Syndicate in the following terms:
"As we learn from the notice you published in the Reichsanzeiger
of the 18th instant, we must reckon with the possibility that the
next general meeting of your company, fixed for the 30th of this
month, may decide on measures which are likely to effect changes
in your undertakings which are unacceptable to us. We deeply
regret that, for these reasons, we are obliged henceforth to with-
draw the credit which had been hitherto allowed you. . . , But if the
said next general meeting does not decide upon measures which are
unacceptable to us and if we receive suitable guarantees on this
matter for the future, we shall be quite willing to open negotiations
with you on the grant of a new credit."*
As a matter of fact, this is small capital's old complaint about being
oppressed by big capital, but in this case it was a whole syndicate that
fell into the category of "small" capital. The old struggle between big
and small capital is being resumed on a new and higher stage of develop-
ment. It stands to reason that undertakings, financed by big banks handling
billions, can accelerate technical progress in a way that cannot possi-
bly be compared with the past. The banks, for example, set up special
technical research societies, and only "friendly" industrial enterprises
benefit from their work. To this category belong the Electric Railway
Research Association and the Central Bureau of Scientific and Technical
Research.
The directors of the big banks themselves cannot fail to see that new
conditions of national economy are being created. But they are powerless
in the face of these phenomena.
"Anyone who has watched, in recent years," writes Jeidels,
"the changes of incumbents of directorships and seats on the Supervi*
sory Boards of the big banks, cannot fail to have noticed that power
is gradually passing into the hands of men who consider the active
intervention of the big banks in the general development of indus.
try to be indispensable and of increasing importance. Between these
new men and the old bank directors, disagreements of a business
and often of a personal nature are growing on this subject. The
question that is in dispute is whether or not the banks, as credit
institutions, will suffer from this intervention in industry, whether
they are sacrificing tried principles and an assured profit to engage
in a field of activity which has nothing in common with their role
as intermediaries in providing credit, and which is leading the banks
*Dr.Oskar Stillich, Geld- und Bankweeen, Berlin, 1907, p. 147.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 075
into a field where they are more than ever before exposed to the blind
forces of trade fluctuations . This is the opinion of many of the older
bank directors, while most of the young men consider active inter-
vention in industry to be a necessity as great as that which gave rise,
simultaneously with big modern industry, to the big banks and
modern industrial banking. The two parties to this discussion are
agreed only on one point: and that is, that as yet there are neither
firm principles nor a concrete aim in the new activities of the big
banks."*
The old capitalism has had its day. The new capitalism represents a
transition towards something. It is hopeless, of course, to seek for "firm
principles and a concrete aim" for the purpose of "reconciling" monopoly
with free competition. The admission of the practical men has quite a
different ring from the official praises of the charms of "organized" capital-
ism sung by its apologists, Schulze-Gaevernitz, Liefmann and similar
"theoreticians."
At precisely what period were the "new activities" of the big banks
finally established? Jeidels gives us a fairly exact answer to this impor-
tant question:
"The ties between the banks and industrial enterprises, with their
new content, their new forms and their new organs, namely, the
big banks which are organized on both a centralized and a decentral-
ized basis, were scarcely a characteristic economic phenomenon before
the 'nineties; in one sense, indeed this initial date may be advanced
to the year 1897, when the important 'mergers' took place and when,
for the first time, the new form of decentralized organization was
introduced to suit the industrial policy of the banks. This starting
point could perhaps be placed at an even later date, for it was the
crisis (of 1900) that enormously accelerated and intensified the proc-
ess of concentration of industry and banking, consolidated that
process, for the first time transformed the connection with industry
into the monopoly of the big banks, and made this connection much
closer and more active."**
Thus, the beginning of the twentieth century marks the turning point
from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital
in general to the domination of finance capital.
* Jeidels, op. cit.t pp. 183-84.
**/&«*., p. 181.
43*
676 V. I. LENIN
III. FINANCE CAPITAL AND FINANCIAL
OLIGARCHY
"A steadily increasing proportion of capital in industry," Hil-
ferding writes, "does not belong to the industrialists who employ it.
They obtain the use of it only through the medium of the banks,
which, in relation to them, represent the owners of the capital. On
the other hand, the bank is forced to keep an increasing share of
its funds engaged in industry. Thus, to an increasing degree the banker
is being transformed into an industrial capitalist. This bank capi-
, tal, i.e., capital in money form which is thus really transformed into
industrial capital, I call 'finance capital*. . . . Finance capital is
capital controlled by banks and employed by industrialists."*
This definition is incomplete in so far as it is silent on one extremely
important fact: the increase of concentration of production and of capital
to such an extent that it leads, and has led, to monopoly. But throughout
the whole of his work, and particularly in the two chapters which precede
the one from which this definition is taken, Hilferding stresses the part
played by capitalist monopolies.
The concentration of production; the monopoly arising therefrom; the
merging or coalescense of banking with industry — this is the history
of the rise of finance capital and what gives the term "finance capital" its
'content.
We now have to describe how, under the general conditions of commod-
ity production and private property, the "domination" of capitalist
'monopolies inevitably becomes the domination of a financial oligarchy. It
should be noted that the representatives of German bourgeois science — and
not only of German science — like Riesser, Schulze-Gaevernitz, Liefmann
and others are all apologists of imperialism and of finance capital. Instead
of xevealing the "mechanics" of the formation of an oligarchy, its methods,
its revenues "innocent and sinful," its connections with parliaments, etc.,
they conceal, obscure and embellish them. They evade these "vexed ques-
tions" by a few vague and pompous phrases: appeals to the "sense of re-
sponsibility" of bank directors, praising "the sense of duty" of Prussian
officials; by giving serious study to petty details, to ridiculous bills
of parliament — for the "supervision" and "regulation" of monopolies;
by playing with theories, like, for example, the following "scientific15
definition, arrived at by Professor Liefmann: "Commerce is an Occu-
pation having for its object: collecting goods, storing them
and making them available"** (The Professor's bold-face italics.)
* R. Hilferding. Daft Finanzkapital, second edition, p. 301.
** R. Liefmann, Beteiligungsgesellscha fieri, p. 476.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 677
. this it would follow that commerce existed in the time of primi-
tive man, who knew nothing about exchange, and that it will exist under.
Socialism I
But .the monstrous facts concerning the monstrous role of the financial
oligarchy are so striking that in all capitalist countries, in America, France
and Germany, a whole literature has sprung up, written from the bourgeois,
point of view, but which, nevertheless, gives a fairly accurate picture and
criticism — petty-bourgeois, naturally — of this oligarchy.
The "holding system," to which we have already briefly referred above,
should be made the cornerstone. The German economist, Heymann,
probably the first to call attention to this matter, describes it in
this way:
"The head of the concern controls the parent company; the latter
reigns over the subsidiary companies which in their turn control
still other subsidiaries. Thus, it is possible with a comparatively
small capital to dominate immense spheres of production. As a mat-
ter of fact, if holding 50 per cent of the capital is always sufficient to
control a company, the head of the concern needs only one million
to control eight millions in the second subsidiaries. And if this
'interlocking' is extended, it is possible with one million to control
sixteen, thirty-two or more millions."*
Experience shows that it is sufficient to own 40 per cent of the shares
of a company in order to direct its affairs,** since a certain number of
small, scattered shareholders find it impossible, in practice, to attend gener-
al meetings, etc. The "democratization" of the ownership of shares, from
which the bourgeois sophists and opportunists, "would-be" Social-Democrats
expect (or declare that they expect) the "democratization of capital,"
the strengthening of the role and significance of small-scale production, etc.,
is, in fact, one of the ways of increasing the power of the financial oli-
garchy. Incidentally, this is why, in the more advanced, or in the older and
more "experienced" capitalist countries, the law allows the issue of shares
of very small denomination. In Germany, it is not permitted by the law
to issue shares of less value than one thousand marks, and the magnates of
German finance look with an envious eye at England, where the issue of
one-pound shares is permitted. Siemens, one of the biggest industrialists
and "financial kings" in Germany, told the Reichstag on June 7, 1900,
that "the one-pound share is the basis of British imperialism."*** This mer-
chant has a much deeper and more "Marxian" understanding bf imperi-
alism than a certain disreputable writer, generally held to be one of the
- * Hans Gideon Heymann, Die gemischten Werke im deutschen Grosseisen*
gewerbe, Stuttgart, 1904, p. 269.
**Liefmann, BeteiUgungsgesellschaftcn, first edition, p. 258.
*** Schulfce-Gaevernitz in op. tit., p. 110.
678 V. I. LENIN
founders of Russian Marxism, who believes that imperialism is a bad habit
of a certain nation. . . .
Bulf the "holding system*' not only serves to increase enormously the
power of the monopolists; it also enables them to resort with impunity
to all sorts of shady tricks to cheat the public, for the directors of the parent
company are not legally responsible for the subsidiary companies, which
are supposed to be "independent," and through the medium of which they can
"pull off" anything. Here is an example taken from the German review,
Die Bank, for May 1914:
"The Spring Steel Company of Kassel was regarded some years
ago as being one of the most profitable enterprises in Germany*
Through bad management its dividends fell within the space of a
few years from 15 per cent to nil. It appears that the Board, without
consulting the shareholders, had loaned six million marks to one of
the subsidiary companies, the Hassia, Ltd. , which had a nominal capi-
tal of only some hundreds of thousands of marks. This commitment,
amounting to nearly treble the capital of the parent company, was
never mentioned in its balance sheets. This omission was quite le-
gal and could be kept up for two whole years because it did not
violate any provision of company law. The chairman of the Super-
visory Board, who as the responsible head had signed the false
balance sheets, was, and still is, the president of the Kassel Cham-
ber of Commerce. The shareholders only heard of the loan to the
Hassia, Ltd., long afterwards, when it had long been proved to
have been a mistake" (this word the writer should here put in
quotation marks), "and when Spring Steel shares had dropped
nearly 100 points, because those in the know had got rid of
them. . . .
"This typical example of balance-sheet jugglery, quite common
in joint -stock companies, explains why their Boards of Directors are
more willing to undertake risky transactions than individual
dealers. Modern methods of drawing up balance sheets not only
make it possible to conceal doubtful undertakings from the average
shareholder, but also allow the people most concerned to escape the
consequence of unsuccessful speculation by selling their shares in
time while the individual dealer risks his own skin in everything
he does. . . .
"The balance sheets of many joint-stock companies put
us in mind of the palimpsests of the Middle Ages from which the
visible inscription had first to be erased in order to discover
beneath it another inscription giving the real meaning of the
document." (Palimpsests are parchment documents from which
the original inscription has been obliterated and another in-
scription imposed.)
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 679
"The simplest and, therefore, most common procedure for making
balance sheets indecipherable is to divide a single business into sev-
eral parts by setting up subsidiary companies — or by annexing such.
The advantage of this system for various objects — legal and illegal —
are so evident that it is now quite unusual to find an important com-
pany in which it is not actually in use.MJt
As an example of an important monopolist company widely employing
this system, the author quotes the famous General Electric Company
(Allegemeine Elektrizitats Gesellschaft — A.E.G) to which we shall refer
below. In 1912, it was calculated that this company held shares in from
175 to 200 other companies, controlling them, of course, and thus having
control of a total capital of 1,500,000,000 marks.**
All rules of control, the publication of balance sheets, the drawing up of
balance sheets according to a definite form, the public auditing of accounts,
etc., the things about which well-intentioned professors and officials —
that is, those imbued with the good intention of defending and embellishing
capitalism— discourse to the public, are of no avail. For private property
is sacred, and no one can be prohibited from buying, selling, exchanging
or mortgaging shares, etc.
The extent to which this "holding system" has developed in the big
Russian banks may be judged by the figures given by E. Agahd, who was
for fifteen years an official of the Russo-Chinese Bank and who, in May
1914, published a book, not altogether correctly entitled Big Banks and
the World Market.*** The author divides the big Russian banks into two
main categories: a) banks that come under a "holding system," and b) "in-
dependent" banks — "independence," however, being arbitrarily taken to
mean independence of foreign banks. The author divides the first group into
three sub-groups: 1) German participation, 2) British participation,
and 3) French participation, having in view the "participation" and dom-
ination of the big foreign banks of the particular country mentioned. The
author divides the capital of the banks into "productively" invested capi-
tal (in industrial and commercial undertakings), and "speculative! y"
invested capital (in Stock Exchange and financial operations), assuming,
from his petty-bourgeois reformist point of view, that it is possible, under
capitalism, to separate the first form of investment from the second and to
abolish the second form.
* Ludwig Eschwege, Tochtergesellschaften (Subsidiary Companies), to Die
Bank, 1914, I, pp. 544-46.
** Kurt Heinig, Der Weg des Elektrotrusts (The Path of the Electric Trust)
in Die Neue Zeit, 1912, Vol. II, p. 484.
*** E. Agahd, Grossbanken und Weltmarkt. Die wirtschaftliche und politische
Bedeutung der Orossbanken im Weltmarkt unter Berucksichtigung ihres Einflusses
auf Russlands Volkswirtschaft und die deutsch-russischen Beziehungen. ("Big
Banks and the World Market. The economic and political significance of the big
banks on the world market, with reference to their influence on Russia's national
economy and Germ an -Russian relations. Berlin, 1914, pp. 11-17.)
eat)
V. I. LENIN
Here are the figures he supplies:
BANK ASSETS
(According to Reports for October-November, 1913, in millions of rubles)
•
Capital
invested
Groups of Russian Banks
Productive
Speculative
Total
a 1) Four banks: Siberian Commer-
cial Bank, Russian Bank, In-
ternational Bank, and Discount
Bank
413.7
859.1
1,272.8
a 2) Two banks: Commercial and
Industrial, and Russo- British .
239.3
169.1
408.4
a 3) Five banks: Russian-Asiatic, St.
Petersburg Private, Azov-Don,
Union Moscow, Russo-French
Commercial
711.8
661.2
1,373.0
Total: (11 banks) a= . .
1,364.8
1,689.4
3,054.2
b Eight banks: Moscow Merchants,
Volga-Kama, Junker and Co.,
St. Petersburg Commercial (for-
merly Wawelberg), Bank of
Moscow (formerly Riabushinsky),
. Moscow Discount, Moscow Com-
mercial, Private Bank of Moscow.
604.2
391.1
895.3
Total: (19 banks) . . .
1,869.0
2,080.5
3,949.5
According to these figures, of the approximately four billion rubles mak-
ing up the "working" capital of the big banks, more than three- fourths 9
more than three billion, belonged to banks which in reality were only "sub-
sidiary companies" of foreign banks, and chiefly of the Paris banks (the
famous trio: Union Parisienne, Paris et Pays-Bas and Societe Generate), and
of the Berlin banks (particularly the Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesell-
schaft). Two of the most important Russian banks, the Russian Bank for
Foreign Trade and the St. Petersburg International Commercial, between
1906 and 1912 increased their capital from 44,000,000 to 98,000,000 rubles,
and their reserve from 15,000,000 to 39,000,000 "employing three-fourths
German capital.** The first belongs to the Deutsche Bank group and the
second to the Disconto-Gesellschaft. The worthy Agahd is indignant at
the fact that the majority of the shares are held by the Berlin banks, and
that, therefore, the Russian shareholders are power less. Naturally, the coun-
try which exports capital skims the cream: for example, the Deutsche
Bank, while introducing the shares of the Siberian Commercial Bank on
the Berlin market, kept them in its portfolio for a whole year, and then
IMPERIALISM. THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 681
sold them at the rate of 193 for 100, that is, at nearly twice their nominal
value, "earning" a profit of nearly 6,000,000 rubles, which Hilferding calls
"promoters ' profits . "
Our author puts the total "resources" of the principal St.Petersbufg
banks at 8,235,000,000 rubles, about 8V4 billions, and the "holdings," or
rather, the extent to which foreign banks dominated them, he estimates as
follows: French banks, 55 per cent; English, 10 per cent; German,
35 per cent. The author calculates that of the total of 8,235,000,000
rubles of functioning capital, 3,687,000,000 rubles, or over 40 per
cent, fall to the share of the syndicates, Produgol and Prodamet — and the
syndicates in the oil, metallurgical and cement industries. Thus, the
merging of bank and industrial capital has also made great strides in
Russia owing to the formation of capitalist monopolies.
Finance capital, concentrated in a few hands and exercising a virtual
monopoly, exacts enormous and ever- increasing profits from the floating of
companies, issue of stock, state loans, etc., tightens the grip of financial
oligarchies and levies tribute upon the whole of society for the benefit of
monopolists. Here is an example, taken from a multitude of others, of the
methods of "business" of the American trusts, quoted by Hilferding: in
1887, Havermeyer founded the Sugar Trust by amalgamating fifteen
small firms,whose total capital amounted to 6,500,000. Suitably"watered"
as the Americans say, the capital of the trust was increased to 50,000,000.
This "over-capitalization" anticipated the monopoly profits, in the same
way as the United States Steel Corporation anticipated its profits by buy-
ing up as many iron fields as possible. In fact, the Sugar Trust set up mo-
nopoly prices on the market, which secured it such profits that it could pay
10 percent dividend on capital "watered" sevenfold, or about 70 per cent on
the capital actually invested at the time of the creation of the trust ! In 1909, the
capital of the Sugar Trust was increased to 90,000,000. In twenty- two years,
it had increased its capital more than tenfold.
In France the role of the "financial oligarchy" (Against the Financial
Oligarchy in France, the title of the well-known book by Lysis, the fifth
edition of which was published in 1908) assumed a form that was only
slightly different. Four of the most powerful banks enjoy, not a relative,
but an "absolute monopoly" in the issue of bonds. In reality, this is a
"trust of the big banks." And their monopoly ensures the monopolist profits
from bond issues. Usually a country borrowing from France does not
get more than 90 per cent of the total of the loan, the remaining 10 per cent
goes to the banks and other middlemen. The profit made by the banks out
of the Russo-Chinese loan of 400,000,000 francs amounted to 8 per cent;
out of the Russian (1904) loan of 800,000,000 francs the profit amounted
to 10 percent; and out of the Moroccan (1904) loan of 62,500,000 francs, to
18.75 per cent. Capitalism, which began its development with petty usury
capital, ends its development with gigantic usury capital. "The French/'
says Lysis, "are the usurers of Europe." All the conditions of economic life
682 V. I. LENIN
are being profoundly modified by this transformation of capitalism. With
a stationary population, and stagnant industry, commerce and shipping,
the "country" can grow rich by usury. "Fifty persons, representing a cap-
ital of 8,000 ,000 francs can control 2jOOOflOOftOO francs deposited in four
banks. "The "holding system," with which we are already familiar, leads to
the same result. One of the biggest banks, the Soci6t6G6n6rale, for instance,
issues 64,000 bonds for one of its subsidiary companies, the Egyptian
Sugar Refineries. The bonds are issued at 150 per cent, i.e., the bank gaining
50 centimes on the franc. The dividends of the new company are then found
to be fictitious. The "public" lost from 90 to 100 mil lion francs. One of the
directors of the Soci6te Generate was a member of the board of directors of
the Egyptian Sugar Refineries. Hence, it is not surprising that the author
is driven to the conclusion that "the French Republic is a financial mon-
archy"; "it is the complete domination of the financial oligarchy; the latter
controls the press and the government."*
The extraordinarily high rate of profit obtained from the issue of secu-
rities, which is one of the principal functions of finance capital, plays a
large part in the development and consolidation of the financial oligarchy.
"There is not a single business of this type within the country
that brings in profits even approximately equal to those obtained
from the flotation of foreign loans"** (says the German magazine,
Die Bank).
"No banking operation brings in profits comparable with those
obtained from the issue of securities!"***
According to the German Economist, the average annual profits made on
the issue of industrial securities were as follows:
Per cent Per cent
1895 38.6 1898 67.7
1896 36.1 1899 66.9
1897 66.7 1900 55.2
"In the ten years from 1891 to 1900, more than a billion marks of
profits were 'earned' by issuing German industrial securities."****
While, during periods of industrial boom, the profits of finance capital
are disproportionately large, during periods of depression, small and un-
* Lysis, Centre I'oligarchie financiere en France (Against the Financial Oli-
garchy in France), fifth edition, Paris, 1908, pp. 11, 12, 26, 39, 40, 47-48.
** Die Bank, 1913, No 7. p. 630.
*•* Stillich, op. cit.9 p. 143.--.tfd.
**** Stillich, ibid., also Werner Sombart, Die deuUche VoUcswirtschaft im 19.
Jdkrhundert und im Anfang de* 20. Jahrkunderts, (German National Economy in
the Nineteenth and the beginning of the Twentieth Centuriee), second edition,
Berlin, 1909, p. 526, 8th Appendix.
IMPERIALISM. THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 683
sound businesses go out of existence, while the big banks take "holdings"
in their shares, which are bought up cheaply or in profitable schemes
for their "reconstruction" and "reorganization." In the "reconstruction"
of undertakings which have been running at a loss,
"the share capital is written down, that is, profits are distributed on a
smaller capital and subsequently are calculated on this smaller basis.
If the income has fallen to zero, new capital is called in, which, com-
bined with the old and less remunerative capital, will bring in an
adequate return. Incidentally," adds Hilferding, "these reorganiza-
tions and reconstructions have a twofold significance for the banks:
first, as profitable transactions; and secondly, as opportunities for
securing control of the companies in difficulties."*
Here is an instance. The Union Mining Company of Dortmund, founded
in 1872, with a share capital of nearly 40,000,000 marks, saw the market
price of shares rise to 170 after it had paid a 12 per cent dividend in its
first year. Finance capital skimmed the cream and earned a trifle of
something like 28,000,000 marks. The principal sponsor of this company
was that very big German Disconto-Gesellschaft which so successfully
attained a capital of 300,000,000 marks. Later, the dividends of the Union
declined to nil: the shareholders had to consent to a "writing down" of
capital, that is, to losing some of it in order not to lose it all. By a series
of "reconstructions," more than 73,000,000 marks were written off the
books of the Union in the course of thirty years.
"At the present time, the original shareholders of the company
possess only 5 percent of the nominal value of their shares."**
But the banks "made a profit" out of every "reconstruction."
Speculation in land situated in the suburbs of rapidly growing towns is
a particularly profitable operation for finance capital. The monopoly of the
banks merges here with the monopoly of ground rent and with monopoly in
the means of communication, since the increase in the value of the land
and the possibility of selling it profitably in allotments, etc., is mainly
dependent on good means of communication with the centre of the town;
and these means of communication are in the hands of large companies
which are connected by means of the holding system and by the distribu-
tion of positions on the directorates, with the interested banks. As a re-
sult we get what the German writer, L. Eschwege, a contributor to Die
Bank, who has made a special study of real estate business and mortgages,
etc., calls the formation of a "bog." Frantic speculation in suburban build-
ing lots; collapse of building enterprises (like that of the Berlin firm of
* Hilferding, Das Finanzkapital. second edition, p. 152.
** Stillich, op. eit., p. 138 and Liefmann, p. 51.
684 V. I. LENIN
Boswau and Knatier, which grabbed 100,000,000 marks with the help of
the "sound and solid" Deutsche Bank — the latter acting, of course, dis-
creetly behind the scenes through the holding system and getting out of it
by losing "only" 12,000,000 marks), then the ruin of small proprietors and
of workers who get nothing from the fraudulent building firms, underhand
agreements with the "honest" Berlin police and the Berlin administration
for the purpose of getting control of the issue of building sites, tenders,
building licenses, etc.*
"American ethics," which the European professors and well-meaning
bourgeois so hypocritically deplore, have, in the age of finance capital,
become the ethics of literally every large city, no matter what country
it is in.
At the beginning of 1914, there was fralk in Berlin of the proposed for-
mation of a "transport trust," i.e.y of establishing "community of inter-
ests" between the three Berlin passenger transport undertakings: The
Metropolitan electric railway, the tramway company and the omnibus
company.
"We know," wrote Die Bank, "that this plan has been contem-
plated since it became known that the majority of the shares in the
bus company has been acquired by the other two transport compa-
nies. . .. . We may believe those who are pursuing this aim when they
say that by uniting the transport services, they will secure economies
part of which will in time benefit the public. But the question is
complicated by the fact that behind the transport trust that is being
formed are the banks , which, if they desire, can subordinate the means
of transportation, which they have monopolized, to the interests
of their real estate business. To be convinced of the reasonableness of
such a conjecture, we need only recall that at the very formation of
the Elevated Railway Company the traffic interests became inter-
locked with the real estate interests of the big bank which financed
it, and this interlocking even created the prerequisites for the for-
mation of the transport enterprise. Its eastern line, in fact, was to
run through land which, when it became certain the line was to be
laid down, this bank sold to a real estate firm at an enormous profit
for itself and for several partners in the transactions."**
A monopoly, once it is formed and controls thousands of millions, inev-
itably penetrates into every sphere of public life, regardless of the form of
government and all other "details." In the economic literature of Germany
one usually comes across the servile praise of the integrity of the Prussian
* Ludwig Hschwegc, Der Sumpf (The Bog), in Die Bank, 1913, II, p. 952,
et seq.; ibid., 1912, I, p. 223, et seg.
** Verkehrstrust (Transport Trust) in Die Bank, 1914, I, pp. 89-90.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 685
bureaucracy,; and allusions to the French Panama scandal and to political
corruption in America. But the fact is that even the bourgeois literature
devoted to German banking matters constantly has to go far beyond
the field of purely banking operations and to speak, for instance,
of "the attraction of the banks" in reference to the increasing frequency
with which public officials take employment with the banks.
"How about the integrity of a state official who in his in-
most heart is aspiring to a soft job in the Behrenstrasse" * (the
street in Berlin in which the head office of the Deutsche Bank is
situated).
In 1909, the publisher of Die Bank, Alfred Lansburgh, wrote an article
entitled "The Economic Significance of Byzantinism," in which he inci-
dentally referred to Wilhelm II 's tour of Palestine, and to "the immediate
result of this journey," the construction of the Bagdad railway, that fatal
"standard product of German enterprise, which is more responsible for the
'encirclement ' than all our political blunders put together." ** (By encircle-
ment is meant the policy of Edward VII to isolate Germany by surround-
ing her with an imperialist anti-German alliance.) In 1912, another con-
tributor to this magazine, Eschwege, to whom we have already referred,
wrote an article entitled "Plutocracy and Bureaucracy," in which he exposes
the case of a German official named Volker, who was a zealous member
of the Cartel Committee and who, some time later, obtained a lucrative
post in the biggest cartel, i.e., the Steel Syndicate.*** Similar cases, by
no means casual, forced this bourgeois author to admit that "the economic
liberty guaranteed by the German Constitution has become in many de-
partments of economic life, a meaningless phrase" and that under the exist-
ing rule of the plutocracy, "even the widest political liberty cannot save
us from being converted into a nation of unfree people."****
As for Russia, we will content ourselves by quoting one example. Some
years ago, all the newspapers announced that Davidov, the director of the
Credit Department of the Treasury, had resigned his post to take employ-
ment with a certain big bank at a salary which, according to the contract,
was to amount to over one million rubles in the course of several years. The
function of the Credit Department is to "co-ordinate the activities of all
the credit institutions of the country"; it also grants subsidies to banks in
St. Petersburg and Moscow amounting to between 800 and 1,000 million
rubles.*****
* A. Lansburgh, Der Zug zvr Bank (The Attraction of the Bank), in Die Bank9
1900, I, p. 79.
**Ibid., p. 301.
*** Die Bank, 1912, II, p. 825.— Ed.
' ****76trf., 1913, 'II, p. 962.
*****E. Agahd, op. cit., pp. 201 and 202.
686 V. I. LENIN
It is characteristic of capitalism in general that the ownership of capital
is separated from the application of capital to production, that money cap-
ital is separated from industrial or productive capital, and that the rentier
who lives entirely on income obtained from money capital, is separated
from the entrepreneur and from all who are directly concerned in the man-
agement of capital. Imperialism, or the domination of finance capital, is
that highest stage of capitalism in which this separation reaches vast pro-
portions. The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital
means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it
means the crystallization of a small number of financially "powerful" states
from among all the rest. The extent to which this process is going on
may be judged from the statistics on emissions, i.e., the issue of all kinds
of securities.
In the Bulletin of the International Statistical Institute, A. Neymarck*
has published very comprehensive and complete comparative figures cover-
ing the issue of securities all over the world, which have been repeatedly
quoted in part in economic literature. The following are the totals he gives
for four decades:
TOTAL ISSUES IN BILLIONS OF FRANCS
(Decades)
1871-1880 76.1
1881-1890 64.6
1891-1900 100.4
1901-1910 197.8
In the 1870 's, the total amount of issues for the whole world was high,
owing particularly to the loans floated in connection with the Franco- Prus-
sian War, and the company-promoting boom which set in in Germany after
the war. In general, the increase is not rery rapid during the three last dec-
ades of the nineteenth century, and only in the first ten years of the twen-
tieth century is an enormous increase observed of almost 100 per cent.
Thus the beginning of the twentieth century marks the turning point, not
only in regard to the growth of monopolies (cartels, syndicates, trusts), of
which we have already spoken, but also in regard to the development of
finance capital.
Neymarck estimates the total amount of issued securities current i& the
world in 1910 at about 815,000,000,000 francs. Deducting from this
amounts which might have been duplicated, he reduces the total to 575-
* A. Neymarck, Bulletin de Vinstitut international de statistique (Bulletin
of the International Statistical Institute), Vol. XIX, Book IT, The Hague, 1912.
Data concerning small states, second column, are approximately calculated by
adding 20 per cent to the 1902 figures.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 687
600,000,000,000 which is distributed among the various countries as
follows: (We will take 600,000,000,000.)
FINANCIAL SECURITIES CURRENT IN 1910
(in billions of francs)
Great Britain
142 }
United States
132 1 47q
France
no 1 479
Germany
95 1
Russia
31
Austria-Hungary
24
Italy
14
Japan
12
Holland
12.5
Belgium
7.5
Spain
7.5
Switzerland
6.25
Denmark
3.75
Sweden, Norway, Rumania, etc ...
2.5
Total . . 600.00
From these figures we at once see standing out in sharp relief four of the
richest capitalist countries, each of which controls securities to amounts
ranging from 100 to 150 billion francs. Two of these countries, England and
France, are the oldest capitalist countries, and, as we shall see, possess
the most colonies; the other two, the United States and Germany, are in
the front rank as regards rapidity of development and the degree of exten-
sion of capitalist monopolies in industry. Together, these four countries
own 479,000,000,000 francs, that is, nearly 80 per cent of the world's
finance capital. Thus, in one way or another, nearly the whole world is
more or less the debtor to and tributary of these four international banker
countries, the four "pillars" of world finance capital.
It is particularly important to examine the part which export of cap-
ital plays in creating the international network of dependence and ties of
finance capital.
IV. THE EXPORT OF CAPITAL
Under the old capitalism, when free competition prevailed, the ex-
port of goods was the most typical feature. Under modern capitalism,
when monopolies prevail, the export of capital has become the typical
feature.
Capitalism is commodity production at the highest stage of develop-
ment, when labour power itself becomes a commodity. The growth of
internal exchange, and particularly of international exchange, is the char-
688 y. i. LENIN
acteristic distinguishing feature of capitalism. The uneven and spasmodic
character of the development of individual enterprises, of individual
branches of industry and individual countries, is inevitable under the
capitalist system. England became a capitalist country before any other,
and by the middle of the nineteenth century, having adopted free trade,
claimed to be the "workshop of the world," the great purveyor of manu-
factured goods to all countries, which in exchange were to keep her sup-
plied with raw materials. But in the last quarter of the nineteenth century,
this monopoly was already undermined. Other countries, protecting them-
selves by tariff walls, had developed into independent capitalist states.
On the threshold of the twentieth century, we see a new type of monopo-
ly coming into existence. Firstly, there are monopolist capitalist combines
in all advanced capitalist countries; secondly, a few rich countries, in
which the accumulation of capital reaches gigantic proportions, occupy
a monopolist position. An enormous "super- abundance of capital" has
accumulated in the advanced countries.
It goes without saying that if capitalism could develop agriculture,
which today lags far behind industry everywhere, if it could raise the stand-
ard of living of the masses, who are everywhere still poverty-stricken and
underfed, in spite of the amazing advance in technical knowledge, there
could be no talk of a superabundance of capital. This "argument" the petty-
bourgeois critics of capitalism advance on every occasion. But if capital*
ism did these things it would not be capitalism; for uneven development
and wretched conditions of the masses are fundamental and inevitable
conditions and premises of this mode of production. As long as capital-
ism remains what it is, surplus capital will never be utilized for the pur-
pose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for
this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists; it will be used for
the purpose of increasing those profits by exporting capital abroad to
the backward countries. In these backward countries profits are usually
high, for capital is scarce, the price of land is relatively low, wages are
low, raw materials are cheap. The possibility of exporting capital is creat-
ed by the fact that numerous backward countries have been drawn into
international capitalist intercourse; main railways have either been built
or are being built there; the elementary conditions for industrial develop-
ment have been created, etc. The necessity for exporting capital arises
from the fact that in a few countries capitalism has become "over-ripe"
and (owing to the backward state of agriculture and the impoverished
state of the masses) capital cannot find "profitable" investment.
Here are approximate figures showing the amount of capital invested
abroad by the three principal countries:*
* Hobson, Imperialism, London, 1902, p. 58; R lesser, op. cit,, pp. 395 and 404;
P. Arndt in Weltwirtschaftlichea Archiv (World Economic Archive), Vol. VII, 1916,
p. 35; Neymarck in Bulletin de I' Ins ti tut international de statistique; Hilferd
*ing, Das Finanzkapital, p. 437; Lloyd George, Speech in the House of Commons,
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGS OF CAPITALISM
CAPITAL INVESTED ABROAD
(In billions of francs)
Year
Great Britain
France
Germany
1862
3.6
1872
15.0
10 (1869)
^ __
1882
22.0
15 (1880)
?
1898 . . . ....
42.0
20 (1890)
?
1902 .
62.0
27-37
12.5
1914
75-100.0
60
44.0
This table shows that the export of capital reached formidable dimen-
sions only in the beginning of the twentieth century. Before the war the
capital invested abroad by the three principal countries amounted to
between 175,000,000,000 and 200,000,000,000 francs. At the modest rate
of 5 per cent, this sum should have brought in from 8 to 10 billions a year.
This provided a solid basis for imperialist oppression and the exploita-
tion of most of the countries and nations of the world; a solid basis for the
capitalist parasitism of a handful of wealthy states!
How is this capital invested abroad distributed among the various
countries? Where does it go? Only an approximate answer can be given to
this question, but sufficient to throw light on certain general relations
and ties of modern imperialism.
APPROXIMATE DISTRIBUTION OF FOREIGN CAPITAL (ABOUT 1910)
(In billions of marks)
Continent
Gr. Britain
France
Germany
Total
Europe
4
23
18
45
America ...
37
4
10
51
Asia, Africa and Australia
29
8
7
44
Total
70
1 35
1 35
140
May 4, 1915, reported in the Daily Telegraph, May 5, 1915; B. Harms, Probleme
der Weltwirtschaft (Problems of World Economy), Jena, 1912, p. 235 et eeg.;Dt.
Siegmund Schilder, Entwicklungstendemen der Weltwirtschaft (Trends of Devel-
opment of World Economy), Berlin, 1912, Vol. I, p. 150; George Paish, Great
Britain's Capital Investments, etc. in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society,
Vol. LXXIV, 1910-11, p. 16 etseq.;. Georges Diouritch, L* expansion des banyues alle*
mandea a Vetranger, sea rapports avec le diveloppement economiquedel'Allemagne
(Expansion of German Banks Abroad in connection with the Economic Development
of Germany), Paris, 1909, p. 84.
44-685
690 V. I. LENIN
The principal spheres of investment of British capital are the British
colonies, which are very large also in America (for example, Canada) not
to mention Asia, etc. In this case, enormous exports of capital are bound
up with the possession of enormous colonies, of the importance of which
for imperialism we shall speak later. In regard to France, the situation is
quite different, French capital exports are invested mainly in Europe,
particularly in Russia (at least ten billion francs). This is mainly loan
capital, in the form of government loans and not investments in indus-
trial undertakings. Unlike British colonial imperialism, French imperial-
ism might be termed usury imperialism. In regard to Germany, we have
a third type; the German colonies are inconsiderable, and German cap-
ital invested abroad is divided fairly evenly between Europe and
America.
The export of capital greatly affects and accelerates the development
of capitalism in those countries to which it is exported. While, therefore,
the export of capital may tend to a certain extent to arrest development
in the countries exporting capital, it can only do so by expanding and
deepening the further development of capitalism throughout the
world.
The countries which export capital are nearly always able to obtain
"advantages," the character of which throws light on the peculiari-
ties of the epoch of finance capital and monopoly. The following pas-
sage, for instance, occurred in the Berlin review, Die Bank, for Octo-
ber 1913:
"A comedy worthy of the pen of Aristophanes is being played
just now on the international capital market. Numerous foreign
countries, from Spain to the Balkan states, from Russia to the Argen-
tine, Brazil and China, are openly or secretly approaching the big
money markets demanding loans, some of which are very urgent.
The money market is not at the moment very bright and the polit-
ical outlook is not yet promising. But not a single money market
dares to refuse a foreign loan for fear that its neighbour might first
anticipate it and so secure some small reciprocal service. In these
international transactions the creditor nearly always manages
to get some special advantages: an advantage of a commercial-
political nature, a coaling station, a contract to construct a harbour,
a fat concession, or an order for guns."*
Finance capital has created the epoch of monopolies, and monopolies
introduce everywhere monopolist methods: the utilization of "connections"
for profitable transactions takes the place of competition on the open mar-
ket. The most usual thing is to stipulate that part of the loan that is granted
* Die Bank. 1913, II, pp. 1024-25.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 691
shall be spent on purchases in the country of issue, particularly on orders
for war materials, or for ships, etc. In the course of the last two decades
(1890-1910), France often resorted to this method. The export of capital
abroad thus becomes a means for encouraging the export of commodities. In
these circumstances transactions between particularly big firms assume a
form "bordering on corruption," as Schilder* "delicately" puts it. Krupp
in Germany, Schneider in France, Armstrong in England are instances of
firms which have close connections with powerful banks and governments
and cannot be "ignored" when arranging a loan.
France granted loans to Russia in 1905 and by the commercial treaty of
September 16, 1905, she "squeezed" concessions out of her to run till 1917.
She did the same thing when the Franco- Japanese commercial treaty was
concluded on August 19, 1911. The tariff war between Austria and Serbia,
which lasted with a seven months' interval, from 1906 to 1911, was partly
caused by competition between Austria and France for supplying Serbia
with war materials. In January 1912, Paul Deschanel stated in the Cham-
ber of Deputies that from 1908 to 1911 French firms had supplied war
materials to Serbia to the value of 45,000,000 francs.
A report from the Austro- Hungarian Consul at Sao- Paulo (Brazil)
states:
"The construction of the Brazilian railways is being carried
out chiefly by French, Belgian, British and German capital. In the
financial operations connected with the construction of these rail-
ways the countries involved also stipulate for orders for the neces-
sary railway materials."
Thus finance capital, almost literally, one might say, spreads its
net over all countries of the world. Banks founded in the colonies, or their
branches, play an important part in these operations. German imperialists
look with envy on the "old" colonizing nations which are "well established"
in this respect. In 1904, Great Britain had 50 colonial banks with
2,279 branches (in 1910 there were 72 banks with 5,449 branches): France
had 20 with 136 branches; Holland 16 with 68 branches; and Germany had
a "mere" 13 with 70 branches.** The American capitalists, in their turn,
are jealous of the English and German: "In South America," they com-
plained in 1915, "five German banks have forty branches and five English
banks have seventy branches. . . . England and Germany have invested in
Argentine, Brazil, and Uruguay in the last twenty-five years approxi-
mately four thousand million dollars, and as a result enjoy together 46
per cent of the total trade of these three countries."***
* Schilder, op. cit.t Vol. I, pp. 346, 349, 350 and 371.
** Riesser, op. cit., fourth edition, pp. 374-75; Diouritch, p. 283.
** * The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Soda I Science, Vol. LIX,
May 1915, p. 301. In the same volume on p. 131, we read that the well-known
44*
V. I. LENIN
The capital exporting countries have divided the world among them-
selves in the figurative sense of the term. But finance capital has also led to
the actual division of the world.
V. THE DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG CAPITALIST
COMBINES
Monopolist capitalist combines — cartels, syndicates, trusts — divide
among themselves, first of all, the whole internal market of a country,
and impose their control, more or less completely, upon the industry of
that country. But under capitalism the home market is inevitably bound
up with the foreign market. Capitalism long ago created a world market.
As the export of capital increased, and as the foreign and colonial relations
and the "spheres of influence" of the big monopolist combines expanded,
things "naturally" gravitated towards an international agreement among
these combines, and towards the formation of international cartels.
This is a new stage of world concentration of capital and production, in-
comparably higher than the preceding stages. Let us see how this super-
monopoly develops.
The electrical industry is the most typical of the modern technical
achievements of capitalism of the end of the nineteenth and beginning
of the twentieth centuries. This industry has developed most in the two
most advanced of the new capitalist countries, the United States and Ger-
many. In Germany, the crisis of 1900 gave a particularly strong impetus to
its concentration. During the crisis, the banks, which by this time had be-
come fairly well merged with industry, greatly accelerated and deepened
the collapse of relatively small firms and their absorption by the large
ones.
"The banks," writes Jeidels, "in refusing a helping hand to the
very companies which are in greatest need of capital bring on first
a frenzied boom and then the hopeless failure of the companies which
have not been attached to them closely long enough."*
As a result, after 1900, concentration in Germany proceeded by leaps
and bounds. Up to 1900 there had been seven or eight "groups" in the elec-
trical industry. Each was formed of several companies (altogether there
were twenty-eight) and each was supported by from two to eleven banks.
statistician Paish, in the last annual issue of the financial magazine Statist, esti-
mated the amount of capital exported by England, Germany, France, Belgium
and Holland at $40,000,000,000, i.e., 200,000,000,000 francs.
* Jeidels, op. cit.9 p. 232.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 693
Between 1908 and 1912 all the groups were merged into two, or possibly
one. The diagram below shows the process:
GROUPS IN THE GERMAN ELECTRICAL INDUSTRY
Prior Felten & Lah- Union Siemens Schuckert Berg- Kum-
to Guillaume meyer A.E.G. & Halske & Co. mann mer
1900: . ,
Felten & Lahmeyer A.E.G. Siemens & Halske- Berg- Fa led
Schuckert mann in
1900
A.E.G. Siemens & Halske-Schuckert
(General Electric Co.)
By 1912:
(In close "co-operation" since 1908)
The famous A.E.G. (General Electric Company), which grew up in
this way, controls 175 to 200 companies (through shareholdings), and a to-
tal capital of approximately 1,500,000,000 marks. Abroad, it has thirty-
four direct agencies, of which twelve are joint-stock companies, in more
than ten countries. As early as 1904 the amount of capital invested abroad
by the German electrical industry was estimated at 233,000,000 marks. Of
this sum, 62,000,000 were invested in Russia. Needless to say, the A.E.G.
is a huge combine. Its manufacturing companies alone number no less
than sixteen, and their factories make the most varied articles, from
cables and insulators to motor cars and aeroplanes.
But concentration in Europe was a part of the process of concentration
in America which developed in the following way:
General Electric Company
United States: Thomson-Houston Co. Edison Co. establishes in Eu-
establishes a firm in rope the French Edison Co.
Europe which transfers its patents to
the German firm
Germany: Union Electric Co. Oen'i Electric Co. (A.E.G.)
General Electric Co. (A.E.G.)
Thus, two "Great Powers" in the electrical industry were formed.
"There are no other electric companies in the world completely independ-
ent of them," wrote Heinig in his article "The Path of the Electric
Trust." An idea, although far from complete, o£ the turnover and the size
694
V. I. LENIN
of the enterprises of the two "trusts" can be obtained from the follow-
ing figures:
Turnover
(Mill, marks)
No. of
employees
Net profits
(Mill, marks)
America:
trie Co.
Germany:
trie Co.
General Elec-
(G. E. C.).
1907
1910
252
298
28,000
32,000
35.4
45.6
General Elec-
(A. E. G.) .
1907
1911
216
362
30,700
60,800
14.5
21.7
In 1907, the German and American trusts concluded an agreement by
which they divided the world between themselves. Competition between
them ceased. The American General Electric Company (G.E.C.) "got"
the United States and Canada. The German General Electric Compa-
ny (A.E.G.) "got" Germany, Austria, Russia, Holland, Denmark, Switzer-
land, Turkey and the Balkans. Special agreements, naturally secret, were
concluded regarding the penetration of "subsidiary" companies into
new branches of industry, into "new" countries formally not yet allot-
ted. The two trusts were to exchange inventions and experiments.*
It is easy to understand how difficult competition has become against
this trust, which is practically world-wide, which controls a capital of
several billion, and has its "branches," agencies, representatives, connec-
tions, etc., in every corner of the world. But the division of the world be-
tween two powerful trusts does not remove the possibility of redivision if
the relation of forces changes as a result of uneven development, war,
bankruptcy, etc.
The oil industry provides an instructive example of attempts at such
a redivision, or rather of a struggle for redivision.
"The world oil market," wrote Jeidels in 1905, "is even today
divided in the main between two great financial groups — Rockefel-
ler's American Standard Oil Co., and the controlling interests of
the Russian oilfields in Baku, Rothschild and Nobel. The two groups
are in close alliance. But for several years five enemies have
been threatening their monopoly:"**
1) The exhaustion of the American oil wells; 2) the competition of the
firm of Mantashev of Baku; 3) the Austrian wells; 4) the Rumanian wells;
* 'Ttfiesser, op. cit.\ Diouritch, op. cit.9 p. 239; Kurt] Heinig, op. cit., p. 474.
** Jeidels, op. cif./pp. 192-93
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 695
5) the overseas oilfields, particularly in the Dutch colonies (the extremely
rich firms, Samuel and Shell, also connected with British capital). The
three last groups are connected with the great German banks, principal-
ly, the Deutsche Bank. These banks independently and systematically
developed the oil industry in Rumania, in order to have a foothold
of their "own." In 1907, 185,000,000 francs of foreign capital were in-
vested in the Rumanian oil industry, of which 74, 000,000 came from
Germany. *
A struggle began, which in economic literature is fittingly called "the
struggle for the division of the world." On one side, the Rockefeller trust
wishing to conquer everything, formed a subsidiary company right in
Holland, and bought up oil wells in the Dutch Indies, in order to strike
at its principal enemy, the Anglo-Dutch Shell trust. On the other side, the
Deutsche Bank and the other German banks aimed at "retaining" Rumania
"for themselves" and at uniting it with Russia against Rockefeller,
The latter controlled far more capital and an excellent system of oil trans-
port and distribution. The struggle had to end, and did end in 1907,
with the utter defeat of the Deutsche Bank, which was confronted with the
alternative: either to liquidate its oil business and lose millions, or to
submit. It chose to submit, and concluded a very disadvantageous agree-
ment with the American trust. The Deutsche Bank agreed "not to attempt
anything which might injure American interests." Provision was made,
however, for the annulment of the agreement in the event of Germany estab-
lishing a state oil monopoly.
Then the "comedy of oil" began. One of the German finance kings,
von Gwinner, a director of the Deutsche Bank, began through his private
secretary, Stauss, a campaign for a state oil monopoly. The gigantic ma-
chine of the big German bank and all its wide "connections" were set in
motion. The press bubbled over with "patriotic" indignation against the
"yoke" of the American trust, and, on March 15, 1911, the Reichstag by
an almost unanimous vote, adopted a motion asking the government to
introduce a bill for the establishment of an oil monopoly. The government
seised upon this "popular" idea, and the game of the Deutsche Bank, which
hoped to cheat its American partner and improve its business by a state
monopoly, appeared to have been won. The German oil magnates saw
visions of wonderful profits, which would not be less than those of the Rus-
sian sugar refiners But, firstly, the big German banks quarrelled among
themselves over the division of the spoils. The Disconto-Gesellschaft ex-
posed the covetous aims of the Deutsche Bank; secondly, the government
took fright at the prospect of a struggle with Rockefeller; it was doubtful
whether Germany could be sure of obtaining oil from other sources. (The
Rumanian output was small.) Thirdly, just at that time the 1913 credits
of a billion marks were voted for Germany's war preparations. The project
* Piouritch, op. cit., p. 275,
098 V. I. LENIN
of the oil monopoly was postponed. The Rockefeller trust came out of the
struggle, for the time being, victorious.
*nxe Berlin review, Die Bank, said in this connection that Germany could
only fight the oil trust by establishing an electricity monopoly and
by converting water power into cheap electricity.
"But," the author added, "the electricity monopoly will come when
the producers need it, that is to say, on the eve of the next great
crash in the electrical industry, and when the powerful, expen-
sive electric stations which are now being put up at great cost every-
where by private electrical concerns, which obtain partial monopo-
lies from the state, from towns, etc., can no longer work at a profit.
Water power will then have to be used. But it will be impossible to
convert it into cheap electricity at state expense; it will have to be
handed over to a 'private monopoly controlled by the state,' be-
cause of the immense compensation and damages that would have
to be paid to private industry. ... So it was with the nitrate monopoly,
so it is with the oil monopoly; so it will be with the electric power
monopoly. It is time for our state socialists, who allow themselves
to be blinded by beautiful principles, to understand once and for
all that in Germany monopolies have never pursued the aim, nor
have they had the result, of benefiting the consumer, or of handing
over to the state part of the entrepreneurs9 profits; they have served
only to facilitate at the expense of the state, the recovery of private
industries which were on the verge of bankruptcy."*
Such are the valuable admissions which the German bourgeois economists
are forced to make. We see plainly here how private monopolies and
state monopolies are bound up together in the age of finance capital; how
both are but separate links in the imperialist struggle between the big
monopolists for the division of the world.
In mercantile shipping, the tremendous development of concentration
has ended also in the division of the world. In Germany two powerful com-
panies have raised themselves to first rank, the Hamburg- Amerika and the
Norddeutscher Lloyd, each having a capital of 200,000,000 marks (in stocks
and bonds) and possessing 185 to 189 million marks worth of shipping
tonnage. On the other side, in America, on January 1, 1903, the Morgan
trust, the International Mercantile Marine Co., was formed which united
nine British and American steamship companies, and which controlled a
capital of 120,000,000 dollars (480,000,000 marks). As early as 1903, the
German giants and the Anglo-American trust concluded an agreement and
divided the world in accordance with the division of profits. The German
companies undertook not to compete in the Anglo-American traffic. The
» Die Bank, 1912, p. 1036; cf. also 1912,11, p. 629 et eeq.; 1913, I, p. 388,
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 697
ports were carefully "allotted" to each; a joint committee of control was set
up, etc. This contract was concluded for twenty years, with the prudent
provision for its annulment in the event of war. *
Extremely instructive also is the story of the creation of the Interna-
tional Rail Cartel. The first attempt of" the British, Belgian and German
rail manufacturers to create such a cartel was made as early as 1884, at
the time of a severe industrial depression. The manufacturers agreed not to
compete with one another for the home markets of the countries involved,
and they divided the foreign markets in the following quotas: Great Britain
66 per cent; Germany 27 per cent; Belgium 7 per cent. India was reserved
entirely for Great Britain. Joint war was declared against a British
firm which remained outside the cartel. The cost of this economic war
was met by a percentage levy on all sales. But in 1886 the cartel collapsed
when two British firms retired from it. It is characteristic that agreement
could not be achieved in the period of industrial prosperity which fol-
lowed.
At the beginning of 1904, the German steel syndicate was formed. In
November 1904, the International Rail Cartel was revived, with the fol-
lowing quotas for foreign trade: England 53.5 per cent; Germany 28.83
per cent; Belgium 17.67 per cent. France came in later with 4.8 per cent,
5.8 per cent and 6.4 per cent in the first, second and third years respectively,
in excess of the 100 per cent limit, i.e., when the total was 104.8 per cent,
etc. In 1905, the United States Steel Corporation entered the cartel;
then Austria; then Spain.
"At the present time," wrote Vogelstein in 1910, "the division
of the world is completed, and the big consumers, primarily the
state railways — since the world has been parcelled out without con-
sideration for their interests — can now dwell like the poet in the
heaven of Jupiter."**
We will mention also the International Zinc Syndicate, established in
1909, which carefully apportioned output among three groups of factories:
German, Belgian, French, Spanish and British.
Then there is the International Dynamite Trust, of which Liefmann
says that it is
"quite a modern, close alliance of all the German manufacturers of
explosives who, with the French and American dynamite manu-
facturers who have organized in a similar manner, have divided
the whole world among themselves, so to speak/'***
* Riesser, op. cit.t third edition, pp. 114-16.
** Th. Vogelstein, Organisations formen (Forms of Organization), p. 100.
*** R, Liefmann, Kartelle und Trusts, second edition, p. 161.
698 V, I. LENIfl
Licfmann calculated that in 1897 there were altogether about forty
international cartels in which Germany had a share, while in 1910 there
were about a hundred.
Certain bourgeois writers (with whom K. Kautsky, who has completely
abandoned the Marxist position he held, for example, in 1909, has now
associated himself) express the opinion that international cartels are the
most striking expressions of the internationalization of capital, and,
therefore, give the hope of peace among nations under capitalism. Theo-
retically, this opinion is absurd, while in practice it is sophistry and a dis-
honest defence of the worst opportunism. International cartels show to
what point capitalist monopolies have developed, and they reveal the
object of the struggle between the various capitalist groups. This last
circumstance is the most important; it alone shows us the historico-eco-
nomic significance of events; for the/orm* of the struggle may and do con-
stantly change in accordance with varying, relatively particular, and
temporary causes, but the essence of the struggle, its class content, cannot
change while classes exist. It is easy to understand, for example, that it
is in the interests of the German bourgeoisie, whose theoretical arguments
have now been adopted by Kautsky (we will deal with this later), to ob-
scure the content of the present economic struggle (the division of the
world) and to emphasize this or that form of the struggle. Kautsky makes
the same mistake. Of course, we have in mind not only the German bour-
geoisie, but the bourgeoisie all over the world. The capitalists divide the
world, not out of any particular malice, but because the degree of concen-
tration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in or-
der to get profits. And they divide it in proportion to "capital," in pro-
portion to "strength," because there cannot be any other system of divi-
sion under commodity production and capitalism. But strength varies
with the degree of economic and political development. In order to under-
stand what takes place, it is necessary to know what questions are settled
by this change of forces. The question as to whether these changes are
"purely" economic or wow-economic (e.g.9 military) is a secondary one,
which does not in the least affect the fundamental view on the latest epoch
of capitalism. To substitute for the question of the content of the struggle
and agreements between capitalist combines the question of the form of
these struggles and agreements (today peaceful, to-morrow war-like, the
next day war-like again) is to sink to the role of a sophist.
The epoch of modern capitalism shows us that certain relations are
established between capitalist alliances, based on the economic division
of the world; while parallel with this fact and in connection with it, cer-
tain relations are established between political alliances, between states,
on the basis of the territorial division of the world, of the struggle for col-
onics, of the "struggle for economic territory."
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 699
VI. THE DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG THE GREAT POWERS
In his book, The Territorial Development of the European Colonies,
A. Supan,* the geographer, gives the following brief summary of this
development at the end of the nineteenth century:
PERCENTAGE OF TERRITORIES BELONGING
TO THE EUROPEAN COLONIAL POWERS
(INCLUDING UNITED STATES)
1876
1900
Increase or
Decrease
Africa
10.8
90.4
+79.6
Polynesia
56.8
98.9
+42.1
Asia . . .
51.5
56.6
4- 5.1
Australia
100.0
100.0
America
27.5
27.2
— 0.3
"The characteristic feature of this period," he concludes,
therefore, the division of Africa and Polynesia."
'is,
As there are no unoccupied territories — that is, territories that do not
belong to any state — in Asia and America, Mr. Supan's conclusion must
be carried further, and we must say that the characteristic feature of this
period is the final partition of the globe — not in the sense that a new par-
tition is impossible— on the contrary, new partitions are possible and
inevitable — but in the sense that the colonial policy of the capitalist
countries has completed the seizure of the unoccupied territories on our
planet. For the first time the world is completely divided up, so that in the
future only redivision is possible; territories can only pass from
one "owner " to another, instead of passing as unowned territory to an
"owner."
Hence, we are passing through a peculiar period of world colonial pol-
icy, which is closely associated with the "latest stage in the development
of capitalism," with finance capital. For this reason, it is essential first
of all to deal in detail with the facts, in order to ascertain exactly what
distinguishes this period from those preceding it, and what the present
situation is. In the first place, two questions of fact arise here. Is an inten-
sification of colonial policy, an intensification of the struggle for colonies,
observed precisely in this period of finance capital? And how, in this re-
spect, is the world divided at the present time?
* A. Sup an, Die territorial Entwieklung der europdischen Kolonien, Goth a,
1906, p. 254.
700
V. I. LENIN
The American writer, Morris, in his book on the history of colonization,*
has made an attempt to compile data on the colonial possessions of Great
Britain, France and Germany during different periods of the nineteenth
century. The following is a brief summary of the results he has obtained:
COLONIAL POSSESSIONS
(Million square miles and million inhabitants)
Great Britain
France
Germany
Area
Pop.
Area
Pop.
Area
Po-p.
1815-30
?
2.5
7.7
9.3
126.4
145.1
267.9
309.0
0.02
0.2
0.7
3.7
0.5
3.4
7.5
56.4
1.0
14.7
I860
1880
1899
For Great Britain, the period of the enormous expansion of colonial
conquests is that between 1860 and 1880, and it was also very considerable
in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. For France and Ger-
many this period falls precisely in these last twenty years. We saw above
that the apex of pre-monopoly capitalist development, of capitalism in
which free competition was predominant, was reached in the sixties and
seventies of the last century. We now see that it is precisely after that pe-
riod that the "boom" in colonial annexations begins, and that the struggle
for the territorial division of the world becomes extraordinarily
keen. It is beyond doubt, therefore, that capitalism's transition to
the stage of monopoly capitalism, to finance capital, is bound up with
the intensification of the struggle for the partition of the world.
Hobson, in his work on imperialism, marks the years 1884-1900 as
the period of the intensification of the colonial "expansion" of the chief
European states. According to his estimate, Great Britain during these
years acquired 3,700,000 square miles of territory with a population of
57,000,000; France acquired 3,600,000 square miles with a population
of 36,500,000; Germany 1,000,000 square miles with a population of
16,700,000; Belgium 900,000 square miles with 30,000,000 inhabitants;
Portugal 800,000 square miles with 9,000,000 inhabitants. The quest for
colonies by all the capitalist states at the end of the nineteenth century
and particularly since the 1880 's is a commonly known fact in the history
of diplomacy and of foreign affairs.
When free competition in Great Britain was at its zenith, ».e., be-
tween 1840 and 1860, the leading British bourgeois politicians were op-
* Henry C. Morris, The History of Colonization, New York, 1900, II, p. 88;
I, pp. 304, 419.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 701
posed to colonial policy and were of the opinion that the liberation of the
colonies and their complete separation from Britain was inevitable and
desirable. M. Beer, in an article, ""Modern British Imperialism," * pub-
lished in 1898, shows that in 1852, Disraeli, a statesman generally inclined
towards imperialism, declared: "The colonies are millstones round
our necks." But at the end of the nineteenth century the heroes of the hour
in England were Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain, open advocates
of imperialism, who applied the imperialist policy in the most cynical
manner.
It is not without interest to observe that even at that time these lead-
ing British bourgeois politicians fully appreciated the connection between
what might be called the purely economic and the politico-social roots
of modern imperialism. Chamberlain advocated imperialism by calling
it a "true, wise and economical policy," and he pointed particularly to the
German, American and Belgian competition which Great Britain was
encountering in the world market. Salvation lies in monopolies, said
the capitalists as they formed cartels, syndicates and trusts. Salvation
lies in monopolies, echoed the political leaders of the bourgeoisie, hasten-
ing to appropriate the parts of the world not yet shared out. The jour-
nalist, Stead, relates the following remarks uttered by his close friend
Cecil Rhodes, in 1895, regarding his imperialist ideas:
"I was in the East End of London yesterday and attended a meet-
ing of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were
just a cry for 'bread,' 'bread,' 'bread,' and on my way home I pon-
dered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the
importance of imperialism. . . . My cherished idea is a solution for the
social problem, i.e., in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants
of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial states-
men must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to
provide new markets for the goods produced by them in the fac-
tories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and
butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become
imperialists."**
This is what Cecil Rhodes, millionaire, king of finance, the man who
was mainly responsible for the Boer War, said in 1895. His defence of im-
perialism is just crude and cynical, but in substance it does not differ
from the "theory" advocated by Messrs. Maslov, Siidekum, Potresov, Da-
vid and the founder of Russian Marxism and others. Cecil Rhodes was a
somewhat more honest social-chauvinist.
To tabulate as exactly as possible the territorial division of the world,
and the changes which have occurred during the last decades, we will take
* Die Neue Zeit, XVI, I, 1898, p. 302.
., p. 304.
702
V. I. LteNffl
the data furnished by Supan in the work already quoted on the colo-
nial possessions of all the powers of the world. Supan examines the years
1876 and 1900; we will take the year 1876 — a year aptly selected, for it is
precisely at that time that the pre-monopolist stage of development of
West European capitalism can be said to have been completed, in the main,
and we will take the year 1914, and in place of Supan 's figures we will
quote the more recent statistics of Hubner's Geographical and Statistical
Tables. Supan gives figures only for colonies: we think it useful in or-
der to present a complete picture of the division of the world to add brief
figures on non-colonial and semi-colonial countries like Persia, China and
Turkey. Persia is already almost completely a colony; China and Turkey
are on the way to becoming colonies. We thus get the following summary:
COLONIAL POSSESSIONS OF THE GREAT POWERS
(Million square kilometres and million inhabitants)
Colonies
Home
countries
Total
1876
1914
1914
1914
Area
Pop. | Area
Pop.
Area
Pop.
Area
Pop.
Great Britain ....
Russia
22.5
17.0
0.9
251.9
15.9
6.0
33.5
17.4
10.6
2.9
0.3
0.3
393.5
33.2
55.5
12.3
9.7
19.2
0.3
5.4
0.5
0.5
9.4
0.4
46.5
136.2
39.6
64.9
97.0
53.0
33.8
22.8
11.1
3.4
9.7
0.7
440.0
169.4
95.1
77.2
106.7
72.2
France
Germany
U.S.A
Japan
Total for 6 Great
Powers ....
Colonies of other pow
Semi-colonial countrie
Other countries . .
40.4
ers (Be
s (Pers
273.8
Igium,
ia, Chi
65.0
Hollan
na, Tu
523.4
d, etc.)
rkey) .
16.5
437.2
81.5
9.9
14.5
28.0
960.6
45.3
361.2
289.9
Total area and oooulation of the world
IBB P,
1,657.0
We see from these figures how "complete" was the partition of the world
at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.
After 1876 colonial possessions increase to an enormous degree, more than
one and a half times, from 40,000,000 to 65,000,000 square kilometres in
area for the six biggest powers, an increase of 25,000,000 square kilometres,
that is, one and a half times greater than the area of the "home" countries,
which have a total of 16,500,000 square kilometres. In 1876 three powers
k had no colonies, and a fourth, France, had scarcely any. In 1914 these
four powers had 14,100,000 square kilometres of colonies, or an area one
and a half times greater than that of Europe, with a population of nearly
'IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST SfAGfc OF CAPITALISM 70S
100,000,000. The unevenness in the rate of expansion o£ colonial posses-
sions is very marked. If, for instance, we compare France, Germany and
Japan, which do not differ very much in area and population, we will see
that the first has annexed almost three times as much colonial territory as
the other two combined. In regard to finance capital, also, France, at
the beginning of the period we are considering, was perhaps several times
richer than Germany and Japan put together. In addition to, and on the
basis of, purely economic causes, geographical conditions and other fac-
tors also affect the dimensions of colonial possessions. However strong
the process of levelling the world, of levelling the economic and living
conditions in different countries, may have been in the past decades as
a result of the pressure of large-scale industry, exchange and finance cap-
ital, great differences still remain; and among the six powers, we see,
firstly, young capitalist powers (America, Germany, Japan) which pro-
gressed very rapidly; secondly, countries with an old capitalist devel-
opment (France and Great Britain), which, of late, have made much slow-
er progress than the previously mentioned countries, and thirdly, a coun-
try (Russia) which is economically most backward, in which modern
capitalist imperialism is enmeshed, so to speak, in a particularly close
network of pre-capitalist relations.
Alongside the colonial possessions of these great powers, we have placed
the small colonies of the small states, which are, so to speak, the next
possible and probable objects of a new colonial "share-out." Most of these
little states are able to retain their colonies only because of the conflicting
interests, frictions, etc., among the big powers, which prevent them from
coming to an agreement in regard to the division of the spoils. The "semi-
colonial states" provide an example of the transitional forms which are to
be found in all spheres of nature and society. Finance capital is such a great,
it may be said, such a decisive force in all economic and international
relations, that it is capable of subordinating to itself, and actually does
subordinate to itself even states enjoying complete political independence.
We shall shortly see examples of this. Naturally, however, finance capi-
tal finds it most "convenient," and is able to extract the greatest profit
from a subordination which involves the loss of the political independence
of the subjected countries and peoples. In this connection, the semi-co-
lonial countries provide a typical example of the "middle stage." It
is natural that the struggle for these semi-dependent countries should
have become particularly bitter during the period of finance capital, when
the rest of the world had already been divided up.
Colonial policy and imperialism existed before this latest stage of cap-
italism, and even before capitalism. Rome, founded on slavery, pursued
a colonial policy and achieved imperialism. But "general" arguments
about imperialism, which ignore, or put into the background the funda-
mental difference of social-economic systems, inevitably degenerate into
absolutely empty banalities, or into grandiloquent comparisons like:
704 V. I. LENIN
"Greater Rome and Greater Britain."* Even the colonial policy of capi-
talism in its previous stages is essentially different from the colonial pol-
icy of finance capital.
The principal feature of modern capitalism is the domination of monop-
olist combines of the big capitalists. These monopolies are most firmly
established when all the sources of raw materials are controlled by the
one group. And we have seen with what zeal the international capitalist
combines exert every effort to make it impossible for their rivals to com-
pete with them; for example, by buying up mineral lands, oil fields,
etc. Colonial possession alone gives complete guarantee of success to the
monopolies against all the risks of the struggle with compietitors, including
the risk that the latter will defend themselves by means of a law establish-
ing a state monopoly. The more capitalism is developed, the more the
need for raw materials is felt, the more bitter competition becomes, and
the more feverishly the hunt for raw materials proceeds throughout the
whole world, the more desperate becomes the struggle for the acquisition
of colonies.
Schilder writes:
"It may even be asserted, although it may sound paradoxical
to some, that in the more or less discernible future the growth of
the urban and industrial population is more likely to be hindered
by a shortage of raw materials for industry than by a shortage of
food."
For example, there is a growing shortage of timber — the price of which
is steadily rising — of leather, and raw materials for the textile industry.
"As instances of the efforts of associations of manufacturers to
create an equilibrium between industry and agriculture in world
economy as a whole, we might mention the International Federation
of Cotton Spinners' Associations in the most important industrial
countries, founded in 1904, and the European Federation of Flax
Spinners' Associations, founded on the same model in 1910."**
The bourgeois reformists, and among them particularly the present-day
adherents of Kautsky, of course, try to belittle the importance of facts of
this kind by arguing that it "would be possible" to obtain raw materials
in the open market without a "costly and dangerous" colonial policy;
and that it would be "possible" to increase the supply of raw materials
to an enormous extent "simply" by improving agriculture. But these argu-
* A reference to the book by C. P. Lucas, Greater Rome and Greater Britain,
Oxford, 1912, or the Earl of Cromer's Ancient and Modern Imperialism, London,
1910.
** Schilder, op. cit., pp. 38 and 42.
IMPERIALISM. THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 705
merits are merely an apology for imperialism, an attempt to embellish it,
because they ignore the principal feature of modern capitalism, monopoly.
Free markets are becoming more and more a thing of the past; monopolist
syndicates and trusts are restricting them more and more every day, and
"simply" improving agriculture reduces itself to improving the conditions
of the masses, to raising wages and reducing profits. Where, except in
the imagination of the sentimental reformists, are there any trusts capa-
ble of interesting themselves in the condition of the masses instead of
the conquest of colonies?
Finance capital is not only interested in the already known sources
of raw materials; it is also interested in potential sources of raw materials,
because present-day technical development is extremely rapid, and be-
cause land which is useless today may be made fertile to-morrow if new
methods are applied (to devise these new methods a big bank can equip
a whole expedition of engineers, agricultural experts, etc.), and large
amounts of capital are invested. This also applies to prospecting for min-
erals, to new methods of working up and utilizing raw materials, etc.,
etc. Hence, the inevitable striving of finance capital to extend its economic
territory and even its territory in general. In the same way that the trusts
capitalize their property by estimating it at two or three times its value,
taking into account its "potential" (and not present) returns, and the fur-
ther results of monopoly, so finance capital strives to seize the largest
possible amount of land of all kinds and in any place it can, and by any
means, counting on the possibilities of finding raw materials there, and
fearing to be left behind in the insensate struggle for the last available
scraps of undivided territory, or for the repartition of that which has been
already divided.
The British capitalists are exerting every effort to develop cotton grow-
ing in their colony, Egypt (in 1904, out of 2,300,000 hectares of land
under cultivation, 600,000 or more than one-fourth, were devoted to cotton
growing); the Russians are doing the same in their colony, Turkestan;
and they are doing so because in this way they will be in a better position
to defeat their foreign competitors, to monopolize the sources of raw ma-
terials and form a more economical and profitable textile trust in which
all the processes of cotton production and manufacturing will be "com-
bined" and concentrated in the hands of a single owner.
The necessity of exporting capital also gives an impetus to the conquest
of colonies, for in the colonial market it is easier to eliminate competition,
to make sure of orders, to strengthen the necessary "connections," etc.,
by monopolist methods (and sometimes it is the only possible way).
The non-economic superstructure which grows up on the basis of
finance capital, its politics and its ideology, stimulates the striving for
colonial conquest. "Finance capital does not want liberty, it wants domi-
nation," as Hilferding very truly says. And a French bourgeois writer,
developing and supplementing, as it were, the ideas of Cecil Rhodes,
45—685
706 V. I. LENIN
which we quoted above, * writes that social causes should be added to the
economic causes of modern colonial policy.
"Owing to the growing difficulties of life which weigh not only
on the masses of the workers, but also on the middle classes, impa-
tience, irritation and hatred are accumulating in all the countries
of the old civilization and are becoming a menace to public order;
employment must be found for the energy which is being hurled
out of the definite class channel: it must be given an outlet abroad
in order to avert ah explosion at home."**
Since we are speaking of colonial policy in the period of capitalist
imperialism, it must be observed that finance capital and its correspond-
ing foreign policy, which reduces itself to the struggle of the Great Pow-
ers for the economic and political division of the world, give rise to a
number of transitional forms of national dependence. The division of
the world into two main groups — of colony-owning countries on the one
hand and colonies on the other — is not the only typical feature of this
period; there is also a variety of forms of dependent countries; countries
which, officially, are politically independent, but which are, in fact,
enmeshed in the net of financial and diplomatic dependence. We have
already referred to one form of dependence — the semi-colony. Another
example is provided by Argentina.
"South America, and especially Argentina," writes Schuhse-Gaever-
nitz in his work on British imperialism, "is so dependent financially on
London that it ought to be described as almost a British commercial
colony."***
Basing himself on the report of the Austro-Hungarian consul at Bue-
nos Aires for 1909, Schilder estimates the amount of British capital in-
vested in Argentina at 8,750,000,000 francs. It is not difficult to imagine
the solid bonds that are thus created between British finance capital
(and its faithful "friend," diplomacy) and the Argentine bourgeoisie,
with the leading businessmen and politicians of that country.
A somewhat different form of financial and diplomatic dependence,
accompanied by political independence, is presented by Portugal. Por-
tugal is an independent sovereign state. In actual fact, however, for
* See this volume p. 701. — Ed.
** Wahl, La France aux colonies (France in the Colonies), quoted by
Henri Russier, Le partage de VOcianie (The Partition of Oceania], Paris, 1905,
pp. 165-66.
*** Schulze-Gaevernitz, Britischer Imperialisms und englischer Freihandel
zu Beg inn des 20 Jahrhunderts (British Imperialism and English Free Trade at
the Beginning of the Twentieth Century), Leipzig, 1906, p, 318. Sartorius von
Waltershausen says the same in Das volksivirtschaftliche System der Kapitalanfage
im Auslande (The National Economic System of Capital Investments Abroad),
Berlin, 1907, p. 46.
IMPERIALISM, TtfE HlGHESt STAGE OF CAPITALISM 707
mote than two hundred years, since the war of the Spanish Succession
{1700-14), it has been a British protectorate. Great Britain has protected
Portugal and her colonies in order to fortify her own positions in the fight
against her rivals, Spain and France. In return she has received commer-
cial advantages, preferential import of goods, and, above all, of capital
into Portugal and the Portuguese colonies, the right to use the ports
and islands of Portugal, her telegraph cables, etc.* Relations of this kind
have always existed between big and little states. But during the period
of capitalist imperialism they become a general system, they form part
of the process of "dividing the world," they become a link in the chain
of operations of world finance capital.
In order to complete our examination of the question of the division
of the world, we must make the following observation. This question
was raised quite openly and definitely not only in American literature
after the Spanish- American War, and in English literature after the Boer
War, at the very end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the
twentieth; not only has German literature, which always "jealously"
watches "British imperialism," systematically given its appraisal of
this fact, but it has also been raised in French bourgeois literature in
terms as wide and clear as they can be made from the bourgeois point
of view. We will quote Driault, the historian, who, in his book, Politic
cal and Social Problems at the End of the Nineteenth Century, in the
chapter "The Great Powers and the Division of the World," wrote the
following:
"During recent years, all the free territory of the globe, with
the exception of China, has been occupied by the powers of Europe
and North America. Several conflicts and displacements of influence
have already occurred over this matter, which foreshadow more
terrible outbreaks in the near future. For it is necessary to make
haste. The nations which have not yet made provision for them-
selves run the risk of never receiving their share and never partic-
ipating in the tremendous exploitation of the globe which will
be one of the essential features of the next century" ({ .e., the twen-
tieth). "That is why all Europe and America has lately been afflict-
ed with the fever of colonial expansion, of 'imperialism,' that
most characteristic feature of the end of the nineteenth century/'
And the author added:
"In this partition of the world, in this furious pursuit of the
treasures and of the big markets of the globe, the relative power of the
empires founded in this nineteenth century is totally out of pro*
portion to the place occupied in Europe by the nations which found*
* Schilder, op. cit., Vol. I, pp* 160-61.
45*
108 ' V. I. LENIN
ed them. The dominant powers in Europe, those which decide
the destinies of the Continent, are not equally preponderant in
the whole world. And, as colonial power, the hope of controlling
hitherto unknown wealth, will obviously react to influence the
relative strength of the European powers, the colonial question —
'imperialism,' if you will — which has already modified the polit-
ical conditions of Europe, will modify them more and more."*
VII. IMPERIALISM AS A SPECIAL STAGE OF CAPITALISM
We must now try to sum up and put together what has been said above
on the subject of imperialism. Imperialism emerged as the development
and direct continuation of the fundamental attributes of capitalism in
general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite
and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental
attributes began to be transformed into their opposites, when the fea-
tures of a period of transition from capitalism to a higher social and eco-
nomic system began to take shape and reveal themselves all along the
line. Economically, the main thing in this process is the substitution
of capitalist monopolies for capitalist free competition. Free competi-
tion is the fundamental attribute of capitalism, and of commodity produc-
tion generally. Monopoly is exactly the opposite of free competition;
but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our
eyes, creating large-scale industry and eliminating small industry, re-
placing large-scale industry by still larger-scale industry, finally leading
to such a concentration of production and capital that monopoly has been
and is the result: cartels, syndicates and trusts, and merging with them,
the capital of a dozen or so banks manipulating thousands of millions.
At the same time monopoly, which has grown out of free competition,
does not abolish the latter, but exists over it and alongside of it, and there-
by gives rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, friction
and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher
system.
If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperial-
ism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of cap-
italism. Such a definition would include what is most important,
for, on the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few big
monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist combines of
manufacturers; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the
transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance
to territories unoccupied by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy
of monopolistic possession of the territory of the world which has been
•completely divided up.
* Ed. Driault, ProbUmei politiquet et aociaux, Paris, 1907, p. 299.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 709
But very brief definitions, although convenient, for they sum up the
main points, are nevertheless inadequate, because very important features
of the phenomenon that has to be defined have to be especially deduced.
And so, without forgetting the conditional and relative value of all de-
finitions, which can never include all the concatenations of a phenomenon
in its complete development, we must give a definition of imperialism
that will embrace the following five essential features:
1) The concentration of production and capital developed to such a
high stage that it created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic
life.
2) The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the crea-
tion, on the basis of this "finance capital," of a financial oligarchy.
3) The export of capital, which has become extremely important, as
distinguished from the export of commodities.
4) The formation of international capitalist monopolies which share the
world among themselves.
5) The territorial division of the whole world among the greatest capi-
talist powers is completed.
Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the
dominance of monopolies and finance capital has established itself;
in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in
which the divison of the world among the international trusts has begun;
in which the division of all territories of the globe among the great capi-
talist powers has been completed.
We shall see later that imperialism can and must be defined differently
if consideration is to be given, not only to the basic, purely economic fac-
tors— to which the above definition is limited — but also to the historical
place of this stage of capitalism in relation to capitalism in general,
or to the relations between imperialism and the two main trends in the
working-class movement. The point to be noted just now is that imperial-
ism, as interpreted above, undoubtedly represents a special stage in the
development of capitalism. In order to enable the reader to obtain as well
grounded an idea of imperialism as possible, we deliberately quoted large-
ly from bourgeois economists who are obliged to admit the particularly in-
controvertible facts regarding modern capitalist economy. With the same
object in view, we have produced detailed statistics which reveal the
extent to which bank capital, etc., has developed, showing how the trans-
formation of quantity into quality, of developed capitalism into imperial-
ism, has expressed itself. Needless to say, all boundaries in nature and
in society are conditional and changeable, and, consequently, it would
be absurd to discuss the exact year or the decade in which imperialism
"definitely" became established.
In this matter ,of defining imperialism, however, we have to enter
into controversy, primarily, with K. Kautsky, the principal Marxian
710 V. I. LENIN
theoretician of the epoch of the so-called Second International — that is,
of the twenty-five years between 1889 and 1914.
Kautsky, in 1915 and even in November 1914, very emphatically
attacked the fundamental ideas expressed in our definition of imperial-
ism, Kautsky said that imperialism must not be regarded as a "phase" or
stage of economy, but as a policy; a definite policy "preferred" by
finance capital; that imperialism cannot be "identified" with "contempo-
rary capitalism"; that if imperialism is to be understood to mean "all
the phenomena of contemporary capitalism" — cartels, protection, the
domination of the financiers and colonial policy — then the question as
to whether imperialism is necessary to capitalism becomes reduced to the
"flattest tautology"; because, in that case, "imperialism is naturally a
vital necessity for capitalism," and so on. The best way to present Kaut-
sky's ideas is to quote his own definition of imperialism, which is diamet-
rically opposed to the substance of the ideas which we have set forth
(for the objections coming from the camp of the German Marxists,
who have been advocating such ideas for many years already, have
been long known to Kautsky as the objections of a definite trend in
Marxism).
Kautsky 's definition is as follows:
"Imperialism is a product of highly developed industrial capi-
talism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist
nation to bring under its control or to annex increasingly big
agrarian" (Kautsky 's italics) "regions irrespective of what nations
inhabit those regions,"*
This definition is utterly worthless because it one-sidedly, i.e., arbi-
trarily, brings out the national question alone (although this is extremely
important in itself as well as in its relation to imperialism), it arbitrari-
ly and inaccurately relates this question only to industrial capital in the
countries which annex other nations, and in an equally arbitrary and
inaccurate manner brings out the annexation of agrarian regions.
Imperialism is a striving for annexations — this is what the political
part of Kautsky 's definition amounts to. It is correct, but very incomplete,
for politically, imperialism is, in general, a striving towards violence and
reaction. For the moment, however, we are interested in the economic
aspect of the question, which Kautsky himself introduced into his defi-
nition. The inaccuracy of Kautsky 's definition is strikingly obvious.
The characteristic feature of imperialism is not industrial capital, but
finance capital. It is not an accident that in France it was precisely, the
extraordinarily rapid development of finance capital, and the weakening
« DieNeueZeit, 32nd year (1913-14), II, Sept, 11, 1914, p. 909; c/, also 34tfc
year (1915-16), II, p, J07 et eeq,
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 711
of industrial capital, that, from 1880 onwards, gave rise to the extreme
extension of annexationist (colonial) policy. The characteristic feature
of imperialism is precisely that it strives to annex not only agricultural
regions, but even highly industrialized regions (German appetite for Bel-
gium; French appetite for Lorraine), because 1) the fact that the world is
already divided up obliges those contemplating a new division to reach
out for any kind of territory, and 2) because an essential feature of impe-
rialism is the rivalry between a number of great powers in the striving for
hegemony, i.e., for the conquest of territory, not so much directly for them-
selves as to weaken the adversary and undermine his hegemony. (Belgium
is chiefly necessary to Germany as a base for operations against England;
England needs Bagdad as a base for operations against Germany,
etc.)
Kautsky refers especially — and repeatedly — to English writers who,
he alleges, have given a purely political meaning to the word "imperialism"
in the sense that Kautsky understands it. We take up the work by the
Englishman Hobson, Imperialism, which appeared in 1902, and therein
we read:
"The new imperialism differs from the older, first, in substituting
for the ambition of a single growing empire the theory and the prac-
tice of competing empires, each motivated by similar lusts of political
aggrandisement and commercial gain; secondly, in the dominance
of financial or investing over mercantile interests."*
We see, therefore, that Kautsky is absolutely wrong in referring to
English writers generally (unless he meant the vulgar English imperialist
writers, or the avowed apologists for imperialism). We see that Kautsky,
while claiming that he continues to defend Marxism, as a matter of fact
takes a step backward compared with the social-liberal Hobson, who more
correctly takes into account two "historically concrete" (Kautsky's de-
finition is a mockery of historical concreteness) features of modern
imperialism: 1) the competition between several imperialisms, and 2) the
predominance of the financier over the merchant. If it were chiefly a
question of the annexation of agrarian countries by industrial countries,
the role of the merchant would be predominant.
Kautsky 's definition is not only wrong and un-Marxian. It serves as
a basis for a whole system of views which run counter to Marxian theory
and Marxian practice all along the line. We shall refer to this again later.
The argument about words which Kautsky raises as to whether the modern
stage of capitalism should be called "imperialism" or "the stage of finance
capital" is of no importance. Call it what you will, it matters little. The
fact of the matter is that Kautsky detaches the politics of imperialism
* J. A, Hobson, Imperialism — a Study, JLondon, 1902, p, 324,
712 V. I. LENIN
from its economics, speaks of annexations as being a policy "preferred"
by finance capital, and opposes to it another bourgeois policy which,
he alleges, is possible on this very basis of finance capital. According to
his argument, monopolies in economics are compatible with non-monop-
olistic, non- violent, non-annexationist methods in politics. According
to his argument, the territorial division of the world, which was completed
precisely during the period of finance capital, and which constitutes
the basis of the present peculiar forms of rivalry between the biggest
capitalist states, is compatible with a non- imperialist policy. The result
is a slurring-over and a blunting of the most profound contradictions of the
latest stage of capitalism, instead of an exposure of their depth; the result
is bourgeois reformism instead of Marxism.
Kautsky enters into controversy with the German apologist of im-
perialism and annexations, Cunow, who clumsily and cynically argues
that imperialism is modern capitalism; the development of capitalism
is inevitable and progressive; therefore imperialism is progressive; there-
fore, we should cringe before and eulogize it. This is something like tl-e
caricature of Russian Marxism which the Narodniks drew in 1894-95.
They used to argue as follows: if the Marxists believe that capitalism is
inevitable in Russia, that it is progressive, then they ought to open a public
house and begin to implant capitalisml Kautsky's reply to Cunow is as
follows: imperialism is not modern capitalism. It is only one of the forms
of the policy of modern capitalism. This policy we can and should fight;
we can and should fight against imperialism, annexations, etc.
The reply seems quite plausible, but in effect it is a more subtle and
more disguised (and therefore more dangerous) propaganda of conciliation
with imperialism; for unless it strikes at the economic basis of the trusts
and banks, the "struggle" against the policy of the trusts and banks reduces
itself to bourgeois reformism and pacifism, to an innocent and benevolent
expression of pious hopes. Kautsky's theory means refraining from men-
tioning existing contradictions, forgetting the most important of them,
instead of revealing them in their full depth; it is a theory that has nothing
in common with Marxism. Naturally, such a "theory" can only serve the
purpose of advocating unity with the Cunows.
Kautsky writes:
"from the purely economic point of view it is not impossible that
capitalism will yet go through a new phase, that of the extension
of the policy of the cartels to foreign policy, the phase of ultra-
imperialism,"*
i.e., of a super-imperialism, a union of world imperialism and not struggles
• DieNeueZeit, 32nd year (1913-14), II, Sept. 11, 1914, p. 909; cf. also 34th
year (1915-16), II, p. 107 et 8eq.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 713
among imperialisms; a phase when wars shall cease under capitalism,
a phase of
"the joint exploitation of the world by internationally combined
finance capital,"*
We shall have to deal with this "theory of ultra-imperialism" later
on in order to show in detail how definitely and utterly it departs from
Marxism. In keeping with the plan pf the present work, we shall examine
the exact economic data on this question. Is "ultra-imperialism" pos-
sible "from the purely economic point of view" or is it ultra-non-
sense?
If, by purely economic point of view a "pure" abstraction is meant,
then all that can be said reduces itself to the following proposition: evolu-
tion is proceeding towards monopoly; therefore the trend is towards a single
world monopoly, to a universal trust. This is indisputable, but it is also
as completely meaningless as is the statement that "evolution is pro-
ceeding" towards the manufacture of foodstuffs in laboratories. In this
sense the "theory" of ultra-imperialism is no less absurd than a "theory
of ultra-agriculture" would be.
If, on the other hand, we are discussing the "purely economic" condi-
tions of the epoch of finance capital as a historically concrete epoch,
which opened at the beginning of the twentieth century, then the best
reply that one can make to the lifeless abstractions of "ultra-imperialism"
(which serve an exclusively reactionary aim: that of diverting attention
from the depth of existing antagonisms) is to contrast them with the con-
crete economic realities of present-day world economy. Kautsky's utter-
ly meaningless talk about ultra-imperialism encourages, among other
things, that profoundly mistaken idea which only brings grist to the mill
of the apologists of imperialism, viz., that the rule of finance capital
lessens the unevenness and contradictions inherent in world economy,
whereas in reality it increases them.
R. Calwer, in his little book, An Introduction to World Economics,**
attempted to compile the main, purely economic, data required to under-
stand in a concrete way the internal relations of world economy at the
end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. He divides
the world into five "main economic areas," as follows: 1) Central Europe
(the whole of Europe with the exception of Russia and Great Britain);
2) Great Britain; 3) Russia; 4) Eastern Asia; 5) America; he in-
cludes the colonies in the "areas" of the state to which they belong and
"leaves out" a few countries not distributed according to areas, such
as Persia, Afghanistan and Arabia in Asia; Morocco and Abyssinia
in Africa, etc.
* Die Neue Zeit, 33rd year, I, April 30, 1915, p. 144.
** R. Calwer, Einf&hrung in die Weltwirtschaft, Berlin, 1906.
714
V. I. LENIN
Here is a brief summary of the economic data he quotes on these re-
gions:
Area
Pop.
Transport
Trade
Industry
^
^
,
fl
^
a
Principal economic
B
J2 §
*5?
•o-
~1L
§ ^
areas
| a
i sr
Millions
Railway!
(tttous. 1
1 i
ill
Imports
exports (
lion mar
fg^
o25
Jj!
||l
§s|
oSs
1) Central Euro-
27.6
388
204
8
41
251
15
26
pean
(23.6)*
(146)
2) British ....
yuv • w/
28.9
\ /
398
140
11
25
249
9
51
(28.6)*
(355)
3) Russian ....
22
131
63
1
3
16
3
7
4) East Asian . .
12
389
8
1
2
8
0.02
2
5) American . . .
30
148
379
6
14
245
14
19
We notice three areas of highly developed capitalism with a high de-
velopment of means of transport, of trade and of industry: the Central
European, the British and the American areas. Among these are three
states which dominate the world: Germany, Great Britain, the United
States. Imperialist rivalry and the struggle between these countries have
become very keen because Germany has only a restricted area and few colo-
nies (the creation of "Central Europe" is still a matter for the future;
it is being born in the midst of desperate struggles). For the moment the
distinctive feature of Europe is political disintegration. In the British
and American areas, on the other hand, political concentration is very
highly developed, but there is a tremendous disparity between the immense
colonies of the one and the insignificant colonies of the other. In the col-
onies, capitalism is only beginning to develop. The struggle for South
America is becoming more and more acute.
There are two areas where capitalism is not strongly developed: Russia
and Eastern Asia. In the former, the density of population is very low, in
the latter it is very high; in the former political concentration is very high,
in the latter it does not exist. The par tit ion of China is only beginning,
and the struggle between Japan, U.S.A., etc., in connection therewith
is continually gaining in intensity.
Compare this reality, the vast diversity of economic and political
conditions, the extreme disparity in the rate of development of the various
countries, etc., and the violent struggles of the imperialist states, with
* The figures in parentheses show the area and population of the colonies.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM
716
Kautsky's silly little fable about "peaceful" ultra- imperialism. Is this
not the reactionary attempt of a frightened philistine to hide from stern
reality? Are not the international cartels which Kautsky imagines are the
embryos of "ultra-imperialism" (with as much reason as one would have
for describing the manufacture of tabloids in a laboratory as ultra- agricul-
ture in embryo) an example of the division and the redivision of the world,
the transition from peaceful division to non-peaceful division and vice
versa? Is not American and other finance capital, which divided the whole
world peacefully, with Germany's participation, for example, in the
international rail syndicate, or in the international mercantile ship-
ping trust, now engaged in redividing the world on the basis of a new
relation of forces, which is being changed by methods by no means
peaceful?
Finance capital and the trusts are increasing instead of diminishing
the differences in the rate of development of the various parts of the world
economy. When the relation of forces is changed, how else, under capital-
ism, can the solution of contradictions be found, except by resorting to
violence? Railway statistics* provide remarkably exact data on the differ-
ent rates of development cf capitalism and finance capital in world economy.
In the last decades of imperialist development, the total length of railways,
has changed as follows:
RAILWAYS
(thousand kilometres)
1890
191
3
Increa
se
Europe
224
346
122
U. S. A
268
411
143
Colonies (total) ....
Independent and semi-
dependent states of
Asia and America . .
82 1
[125
43)
21(T
137
347
128'
94
222
Total
617
1,104
i
Thus, the development of railways has been more rapid in the colonies
and in the independent (and semi-dependent) states of Asia and America.
Here, as we know, the finance capital of the four or five biggest capitalist
* Statistisches Jahrbuch jttr das Deutsche Reich (Statistical Yearbook for the
German Empire): 1915, Appendix pp. 46-47, Archiv far Eiaeribahnwesen, 1892
(Railroad Archive). Minor detailed figures for the distribution of railways
among the colonies of the various countries in 1890 had to be estimated approx-
imately,
716
V. I. LENIN
states reigns undisputed. Two hundred thousand kilometres of new rail-
ways in the colonies and in the other countries of Asia and America rep-
resent more than 40,000,000,000 marks in capital, newly invested on partic-
ularly advantageous terms, with special guarantees of a good return and
with profitable orders for steel works, etc., etc.
Capitalism is growing with the greatest rapidity in the colonies and in
overseas countries. Among the latter, new imperialist powers are emerging
(e.g., Japan). The struggle of world imperialism is becoming more acute.
The tribute levied by finance capital on the most profitable colonial and
overseas enterprises is increasing. In sharing out this "booty," an ex-
ceptionally large part goes to countries which, as far as the development
of productive forces is concerned, do not always stand at the top of the list.
In the case of the biggest countries, considered with their colonies, the
total length of railways was as follows (in thousands of kilometres) :
1890
1913
Increase
U. S. A
268
413
145
British Empire
Russia
107
32
208
78
101
46
Germany
43
68
25
France
41
63
22
Total for 5 Great
Powers ....
491
830
339
Thus, about 80 per cent of the total existing railways are concentrated
in the hands of the five Great Powers. But the concentration of the 0»>,,er-
ship of these railways, of finance capital, is much greater still: French
and English millionaires, for example, own an enormous amount of stocks
and bonds in American, Russian and other railways.
Thanks to her colonies, Great Britain has increased the length of
"her" railways by 100,000 kilometres, four times as much as Germany.
And yet, it is well known that the development of productive forces in
Germany, and especially the development of the coal andiron industries,
has been much more rapid during this period than in England — not to
mention France and Russia. In 1892, Germany produced 4,900,000 tons
of pig iron and Great Britain produced 6,800,000 tons; in 1912, Germany
produced 17,600,000 tons and Great Britain, 9,000,000 tons. Germany,
therefore, had an overwhelming superiority over England in this respect.*
We ask, is there under capitalism any means of removing the disparity
* Cf. also Edgar Crummond, "The Economic Relations of the British and
German Empires" in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, July 1914, p. 777,
et seq.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 717
between the development of productive forces and the accumulation
of capital on the one side, and the division of colonies and "spheres
of influence" for finance capital on the other side — other than by
resorting to war?
VIII. THE PARASITISM AND DECAY OF CAPITALISM
We have to examine yet another very important aspect of imperialism
to which, usually, too little importance is attached in most of the argu-
ments on this subject. One of the shortcomings of the Marxist Hilferding
is that he takes a step backward compared with the non-Marxist Hobson.
We refer to parasitism, which is a feature of imperialism.
As we have seen, the most deep-rooted economic foundation of imperi-
alism is monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly which
has grown out of capitalism and exists in the general environment of capi-
talism, commodity production and competition, and remains in perma-
nent and insoluble contradiction to this general environment. Neverthe-
less, like all monopoly, this capitalist monopoly inevitably gives rise to
a tendency to stagnation and decay. As monopoly prices become fixed,
even temporarily, so the stimulus to technical and, consequently, to all
progress, disappears to a certain extent, and to that extent, also, the eco-
nomic possibility arises of deliberately retarding technical progress. For
instance, in America, a certain Mr. Owens invented a machine which revo-
lutionized the manufacture of bottles. The German bottle manufacturing
cartel purchased Owens ' patent, but pigeon-holed it, refrained from utiliz-
ing it. Certainly, monopoly under capitalism can never completely, and
for a long period of time, eliminate competition in the world market
(and this, by the by, is one of the reasons why the theory of ultra-imperi-
alism is so absurd). Certainly, the possibility of reducing cost of production
and increasing profits by introducing technical improvements operates
in the direction of change. Nevertheless, the tendency to stagnation and
decay, which is the feature of monopoly, continues, and in certain branches
of industry, in certain countries, for certain periods of time, it becomes pre-
dominant.
The monopoly of ownership of very extensive, rich or well-situated col-
onies, operates in the same direction.
Further, imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a
few countries, which, as we have seen, amounts to 100-150 billion francs
in various securities. Hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather
of a category, of bondholders (rentiers), i.e., people who live by "clipping
coupons," who take no part whatever in production, whose profession
is idleness. The export of capital, one of the most essential economic
bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from
production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that
718 V. I. LENIN
lives by the exploitation of the labour of several overseas countries and
colonies.
"In 1893," writes Hobson, "the British capital invested abroad
represented about 15 per cent of the total wealth of the United
Kingdom." *
Let us remember that by 1915 this capital .had increased about two
and a half times.
"Aggressive imperialism," says Hobson further on, "which costs
the taxpayer so dear, which is of so little value to the manufacturer
and trader ... is a source of great gain to the investor. . . .
The annual income Great Britain derives from commissions in
her whole foreign and colonial trade, import and export, is estimat-
ed by Sir R. Giffen at £ 18,000,000 for 1899, taken at 2*/2 per cent,
upon a turnover of £ 800,000,000."**
Great as this sum is, it does not explain the aggressive imperialism
of Great Britain. This is explained by the 90 to 100 million pounds ster-
ling income from "invested" capital, the income of the rentiers.
The income of the bondholders is five times greater than the income
obtained from the foreign trade of the greatest "trading" country in
the world. This is the essence of imperialism and imperialist par-
asitism.
For that reason the term, "rentier state" (Rentnerstaat) , or usurer
state, is passing into current use in the economic literature that deals with
imperialism. The world has become divided into a handful of usurer
states on the one side, and a vast majority of debtor states on the other.
"The premier place among foreign investments," says Schulze-
Gaevernitz, "is held by those placed in politically dependent or
closely allied countries. Great Britain grants loans to Egypt,
Japan, China and South America. Her navy plays here the part of
bailiff in case of necessity. Great Britain's political power protects
her from the indignation of her debtors."***
Sartorius von Waltershausen in his book, The National Economic System
of Foreign Investments, cites Holland as the model "rentier state" and
points out that Great Britain and France have taken the same road.****
JJchilder believes that five industrial nations have become "pronounced
* Hobson, op. cit.9 p. 59. — Ed.
** Op. cit.9 pp. 62-3.— Ed.
*** SchuLce-Gaevernitz, Britischer Imperialisms, p. 320, et aeq*
***• Sartorius von Waltershausen, Das volksivirtechaftliche System, etc. (The
National Economic System, etc.) Book IV, Berl., 1907.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 719
creditor nations": Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Swit2er-
land. Holland does not appear on this list simply because she is "industrial-
ly less developed."* The United States is creditor only of the American
countries.
"Great Britain," says Schulze-Gaevernitz, "is gradually becoming
transformed from an industrial state into a creditor state. Notwith-
standing the absolute increase in industrial output and the export
of manufactured goods, the relative importance of income from inter-
est and dividends, issues of securities, commissions and specula-
tion is on the increase in the whole of the national economy. In my
opinion it is precisely this that forms the economic basis of imperi-
alist ascendancy. The creditor is more permanently attached to the
debtor than the seller is to the buyer."**
In regard to Germany, A. Lansburgh, the editor of Die Bank, in 1911,
in an article entitled "Germany — a Rentier State," wrote the following:
"People in Germany are ready to sneer at the yearning to become
rentiers that is observed among the people in France. But they
forget that as far as the middle class is concerned the situation in
Germany is becoming more and more like that in France."***
The rentier state is a state of parasitic, decaying capitalism, and this
circumstance cannot fail to influence all the social-political conditions
of the countries affected generally, and the two fundamental trends in the
working-class movement, in particular. To demonstrate this in the clearest
possible manner we will quote Hobson, who will be regarded as a more
"reliable" witness, since he cannot be suspected of leanings towards
"orthodox Marxism"; moreover, he is an Englishman who is very well
acquainted with the situation in the country which is riches tin colonies,
in finance capital, and in imperialist experience.
With the Boer War fresh in his mind, Hobson describes the connec-
tion between imperialism and the interests of the "financiers," the grow-
ing profits from contracts, etc., and writes:
"While the directors of this definitely parasitic policy are cap-
italists, the same motives appeal to special classes of the work-
ers. In many towns, most important trades are dependent upon
government employment or contracts; the imperialism of the met-
al and shipbuilding centres is attributable in no small degree
to this fact."****
* Schildcr, op. cit., p. 393.
** Schulze-Gaevernits, op. cit., p. \22.-~Ed.
*•* Die Bank, 1911, I, pp. 10-11.
**** Hobson, op. tit., p. 103.— Ed.
720 V. I. LENIN
In this writer's opinion there are two causes which weakened the old-
er empires: 1) "economic parasitism/' and 2) the formation of armies
composed of subject races.
"There is first the habit of economic parasitism, by which the
ruling state has used its provinces, colonies, and dependencies
in order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower classes
into acquiescence."*
And we would add that the economic possibility of such corruption,
whatever its form may be, requires high monopolist profits.
As for the second cause, Hobson writes:
"One of the strangest symptoms of the blindness of imperialism
is the reckless indifference with which Great Britain, France and
* other imperial nations are embarking on this perilous dependence.
* Great Britain has gone farthest. Most of the fighting by which we
have won our Indian Empire has been done by natives; in India,
as more recently in Egypt, great standing armies are placed un-
der British commanders; almost all the fighting associated with
our African dominions, except in the southern part, has been done
for us by natives."**
Hobson gives the following economic appraisal of the prospect of
the partition of China:
"The greater part of Western Europe might then assume the
appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country
in the South of England, in the Riviera, and in the tourist-rid-
den or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland, little clusters
of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the
Far East, with a somewhat larger group of professional retainers
and tradesmen and a large body of personal servants and workers
in the transport trade and in the final stages of production of the
more perishable goods; all the main arterial industries would have
disappeared, the staple foods and manufactures flowing in as trib-
ute from Asia and Africa."***
"We have foreshadowed the possibility of even a larger alliance
of Western States, a European federation of great powers which,
so far from forwarding the cause of world civilization, might intro-
duce the gigantic peril of a Western parasitism, a group of ad-
vanced industrial nations, whose upper classes drew vast tribute
from Asia and Africa, with which they supported great, tame mas-
* Hobson, op. cit., p. 205,
** Op. ct*., p. 144.
*** Op. cit.> p. 335.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 721
ses of retainers, no longer engaged in the staple industries of agri-
culture and manufacture, but kept in the performance of personal
or minor industrial services under the control of a new financial
aristocracy. Let those who would scout such a theory" (it would
be better to say: prospect) "as undeserving of consideration exam-
ine the economic and social condition of districts in Southern
England today which are already reduced to this condition, and
reflect upon the vast extension of such a system which might be
rendered feasible by the subjection of China to the economic con-
trol of similar groups of financiers, investors, and political and
business officials, draining the greatest potential reservoir of profit
the world has ever known, in order to consume it in Europe.
The situation is far too complex, the play of world forces far too
incalculable, to render this or any other single interpretation of
the future very probable: but the influences which govern the im-
perialism of Western Europe today are moving in this direction,
and, unless counteracted or diverted, make towards some such
consummation." *
Hobson is quite right. Unless the forces of imperialism are counteract-
ed they will lead precisely to what he has described. He correctly ap-
praises the significance of a "United States of Europe" in the present
conditions of imperialism. He should have added, however, that, even
within the working-class movement, the opportunists, who are for the
moment predominant in most countries, are "working" systematically
and undeviatingly in this very direction. Imperialism, which means
the partition of the world, and the exploitation of other countries be-
sides China, which means high monopoly profits for a handful of very rich
countries, creates the economic possibility of corrupting the upper stra-
ta of the proletariat, and thereby fosters, gives form to, and strengthens
opportunism. However, we must not lose sight of the forces which coun-
teract imperialism in general, and opportunism in particular, which,
naturally, the social-liberal Hobson is unable to perceive.
The German opportunist, Gerhard Hildebrand, who was expelled
from the Party for defending imperialism, and who would today make
a leader of the so-called "Social-Democratic" Party of Germany, serves
as a good supplement to Hobson by his advocacy of a "United States
of Western Europe" (without Russia) for the purpose of "joint" action . . .
against the African Negroes, against the "great Islamic movement," for
the upkeep of a "powerful army and navy," against a "Sino- Japanese
coalition,"** etc.
* Hobson, op. cit.t pp. 385-86.
** Gerhard Hildebrand, Die Erach&tterung der Induatrieherrschaft und dca
Jena, 1910, p. 229, et seq.
46-685
V. I. LENIN
The description of "British imperialism" in Schulze-Gaevernitz's
book reveals the same parasitical traits. The national income of Great
Britain approximately doubled from 1865 to 1898, while the income "from
abroad" increased ninefold in the same period. While the "merit" of
imperialism is that it "trains the Negro to habits of industry" (not with-
out coercion of course . . .), the "danger" of imperialism is that:
"Europe . . . will shift the burden of physical toil — first agricul-
tural and mining, then the more arduous toil in industry — on to
the coloured races, and itself be content with the role of rentier,
and in this way, perhaps, pave the way for the economic, and lat-
er, the political emancipation of the coloured races,"
An increasing proportion of land in Great Britain is being taken out
of cultivation and used for sport, for the diversion of the rich.
"Scotland," says Schulze-Gaevernitz, "is the most aristocratic
playground in the world — it lives ... on its past and on Mr. Car-
negie."
On horse-racing and fox-hunting alone Britain annually spends
£14,000,000. The number of rentiers in England is about one million.
The percentage of the productively employed population to the total
population is becoming smaller.
Year
Population
No. of workers
in basic
industries
Per cent of
total
population
(millions)
1851
17.9
32.6
4.1
4.9
23
15
1901
And in speaking of the British working class the bourgeois student
of "British imperialism at the beginning of the twentieth century" is
obliged to distinguish systematically between the "upper stratum" of
the workers and the "lower stratum of the proletariat proper." The upper
stratum furnishes the main body of members of co-operatives, of trade
unions, of sporting clubs and of numerous religious sects. The electoral
system, which in Great Britain is still "sufficiently restricted to exclude
the lower stratum of the proletariat proper " is adapted to their level!
In order to present the condition of the British working class in the best
possible light, only this upper stratum — which constitutes only a minor-
ity of the proletariat — is generally spoken of. For instance, "the prob-
lem of unemployment is mainly a London problem and that of the low-
er proletarian stratum, which is of little political moment for politi-
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM ?3
cians."* It would be better to say: which is of little political moment for
the bourgeois politicians and the "Socialist" opportunists.
Another special feature of imperialism, which is connected with the
facts we are describing, is the decline in emigration from imperialist
countries, and the increase in immigration into these countries from the
backward countries where lower wages are paid. As Hobson observes,
emigration from Great Britain has been declining since 1884. In that
year the number of emigrants was 242,000, while in 1900, the number
was only 169,000. German emigration reached the highest point between
1881 and 1890, with a total of 1,453,000 emigrants. In the course of the
following two decades, it fell to 544,000 and even to 341,000. On the
other hand, there was an increase in the number of workers entering Ger-
many from Austria, Italy, Russia and other countries. According to the
1907 census, there were 1,342,294 foreigners in Germany, of whom 440,800
were industrial workers and 257,329 were agricultural workers.** In France,
the workers employed in the mining industry are, "in great part,"
foreigners: Polish, Italian and Spanish.*** In the United States, immi-
grants from Eastern and Southern Europe are engaged in the most poorly
paid occupations, while American workers provide the highest percent,
age of overseers or of the better paid workers.**** Imperialism has the
tendency to create privileged sections even among the workers, and to
detach them from the main proletarian masses.
It must be observed that in Great Britain the tendency of imperial-
ism to divide the workers, to encourage opportunism among them and
to cause temporary decay in the working-class movement, revealed it-
self much earlier than the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the
twentieth centuries; for two important distinguishing features of im-
perialism were observed in Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth
century, viz., vast colonial possessions and a monopolist position in
the world market. Marx and Engels systematically traced this relation
between opportunism in the labour movement and the imperialist fea-
tures of British capitalism for several decades. For example, on October 7,
1858, Engels wrote to Marx:
"The English proletariat is becoming more and more bourgeois,
so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming
ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy, and a bour-
geois proletariat as well as a bourgeoisie. For a nation which ex-
ploits the whole world this is, of course, to a certain extent justi-
fiable."
* Schulze-Gaevernitz, Britischer Imperialisms, pp. 246, 301, 317, 323, 324, 361.
** Statistik des Deutschen Reiches (Statistics of the Oerman Empire), Vol. 211.
*** Henger, Die Kapitalaanlage der Franzosen (French Investments), Stutt-
gart, 1913, p. 75.
**** Hourwich, Immigration and Labor, New York, 1913.
724 V, I, LENIN
Almost a quartet of a century later, in a letter dated August 11, 1881,
Engels speaks of ". . . the worst type of English trade unions which
allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at least, paid by the bour-
geoisie."* In a letter to Kautsky, dated September 12, 1882, Engels
wrote:
"You ask me what the English workers think about colonial
policy? Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in
general. There is no workers' party here, there are only Conserva-
tives and Liberal- Radicals, and the workers merrily share the feast
of England's monopoly of the colonies and the world market. . . ."**
(Engels expressed similar ideas in the press in his preface to the
second edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England,
which appeared in 1892.)
We thus see clearly the causes and effects. The causes are: 1) Exploi-
tation of the whole world by this country. 2) Its monopolistic posi-
tion in the world market. 3) Its colonial monopoly. The effects are: 1) A
section of the British proletariat becomes bourgeois. 2) A section of the
proletariat permits itself to be led by men sold to, or at least, paid by the
bourgeoisie. The imperialism of the beginning of the twentieth century
completed the division of the world among a handful of states, each of
which today exploits (i.e., draws super-profits from) a part of the world
only a little smaller than that which England exploited in 1858. Each
of them, by means of trusts, cartels, finance capital, and debtor and
creditor relations, occupies a monopoly position in the world market.
Each of them enjoys to some degree a colonial monopoly. (We have
seen that out of the total of 75,000,000 sq. km. which comprise the
whole colonial world, 65,000,000 sq. km., or 86 per cent, belong to
six great powers; 61,000,000 sq. km., or 81 per cent belong to three
powers.)
The distinctive feature of the present situation is the prevalence of
economic and political conditions which could not but increase the irrec-
oncilability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of
the working-class movement. Embryonic imperialism has grown into
a dominant system; capitalist monopolies occupy first place in econom-
ics and politics; the division of the world has been completed. On the
other hand, instead of an undisputed monopoly by Great Britain, we
see a few imperialist powers contending for the right to share in this mo-
nopoly, and this struggle is characteristic of the whole period of the begin-
* Marx-Engeb, Briefwechsel. Gesamtauagdbe, Section 3, Vol. II, p. 340,
Vol. IV, p. 511 — Ed.
. **O/. Karl Kautsky, Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik, Berlin, 1907, p. 79;
this pamphlet was written by Kautsky in those infinitely distant days when he
was still a Marxist.
, IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 725
ning of the twentieth century. Opportunism, therefore, cannot now
triumph in the. working-class movement of any country for decades as
it did in England in the second half of the nineteenth century. But, in
a number of countries it has grown ripe, over-ripe, and rotten, and has
become completely merged with bourgeois policy in the form of "social
chauvinism."*
IX. THE CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISM
By the critique of imperialism, in the broad sense of the term, we
mean the attitude towards imperialist policy of the different classes
of society as part of their general ideology.
The enormous dimensions of finance capital concentrated in a few hands
and creating an extremely extensive and close network of ties and relation-
ships which subordinate not only the small and medium, but also even
the very small capitalists and small masters, on the one hand, and the in-
tense struggle waged against other national state groups of financiers for the
division of the world and domination over other countries, on the other
hand, cause the wholesale transition of the possessing classes to the side
of imperialism. The signs of the times are a "general" enthusiasm regard-
ing its prospects, a passionate defence of imperialism, and every possible
embellishment of its real nature. The imperialist ideology also penetrates
the working class. There is no Chinese Wall between it and the other class-
es. The leaders of the so-called "Social-Democratic" Party of Germany
are today justly called "social-imperialists," that is, Socialists in words
and imperialists in deeds; but as early as 1902, Hobson noted the existence
of "Fabian imperialists" who belonged to the opportunist Fabian Society
in England.
Bourgeois scholars and publicists usually come out in defence of im-
perialism in a somewhat veiled form, and obscure its complete domination
and its profound roots; they strive to concentrate attention on partial
and secondary details and do their very best to distract attention from the
main issue by means of ridiculous schemes for "reform," such as police
supervision of the trusts and banks, etc. Less frequently, cynical and frank
imperialists speak out and are bold enough to admit the absurdity of the
idea of reforming the fundamental features of imperialism.
We will give an example. The German imperialists attempt, in the
magazine Archives of World Economy , to follow the movements for national
emancipation in the colonies, particularly, of course, in colonies other
* Russian social-chauvinism represented by Messrs. Potresov, Chkenkeli,
Maslov, etc., in its avowed form as well as in its tacit form, as represented by
Messrs. Chkeidze, Skobelev, Axelrod, Martov, etc., also emerged from the Russian
variety of opportunism, namely, Liquidator ism.
726 V. I. LENIN
than those belonging to Germany. They note the ferment and protest
movements in India, the movement in Natal (South Africa), the movement
in the Dutch East Indies, etc. One of them, commenting on an English
report of the speeches delivered at a conference of subject peoples and
races, held on June 28-30, 1910, at which representatives of various peo-
ples subject to foreign domination in Asia, Africa and Europe were present,
writes as follows in appraising the speeches delivered at this conference:
"We are told that we must fight against imperialism; that the
dominant states should recognize the right of subject peoples to
home rule; that an international tribunal should supervise the ful-
filment of treaties concluded between the great powers and weak
peoples. One does not get any further than the expression of these
pious wishes. We see no trace of understanding of the fact that im-
perialism is indissolubly bound up with capitalism in its present
form and therefore (!!) also no trace of the realization that an open
struggle against imperialism would be hopeless, unless, perhaps,
the fight is confined to protests against certain of its especially abhor-
rent excesses."*
Since the reform of the basis of imperialism is a deception, a "pious
wish," since the bourgeois representatives of the oppressed nations go no
"further" forward, the bourgeois representatives of the oppressing nation
go "further" backward, to servility, towards imperialism, concealed by
the cloak of "science." "Logic," indeed!
The question as to whether it is possible to reform the basis of imperial-
ism, whether to go forward to the accentuation and deepening of the
antagonisms which it engenders, or backwards, towards allaying these
antagonisms, is a fundamental question in the critique of imperialism.
As a consequence of the fact that the political features of imperialism are
reaction all along the line, and increased national oppression, resulting
from the oppression of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free
competition, a petty-bourgeois-democratic opposition has been rising
against imperialism in almost all imperialist countries since the begin-
ning of the twentieth century. And the desertion of Kautsky and of the
broad international Kautskyan trend from Marxism is displayed in the
very fact that Kautsky not only did not trouble to oppose, not only
was unable to oppose this petty-bourgeois reformist opposition, which is
really reactionary in its economic basis, but in practice actually became
merged with it.
In the United States, the imperialist war waged against Spain in 1898
stirred up the opposition of the "anti-imperialists," the last of the Mohi-
* Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv (Archives of World Economy), Vol. II, pp. 194-95,
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 727
cans of bourgeois democracy. They declared this war to be "criminal";
they denounced the annexation of foreign territories as being a violation
of the Constitution, and denounced the "Jingo treachery" by means of
which Aguinaldo, leader of the native Filipinos, was deceived (the Ameri-
cans promised him the independence of his country, but later they landed
troops and annexed it). They quoted the words of Lincoln:
"When the white man governs himself, that is self-government;
but when he governs himself and also governs others, it is no longer
self-government; it is despotism."*
But while all this criticism shrank from recognizing the indissoluble
bond between imperialism and the trusts, and, therefore, between imperial-
ism and the very foundations of capitalism; while it shrank from joining
up with the forces engendered by large-scale capitalism and its development
— it remained a "pious wish."
This is also, in the main, the attitude of Hobson in his criticism of
imperialism. Hobson anticipated Kautsky in protesting against the "inevi-
tability of imperialism" argument, and in urging the need to raise the con-
suming capacity of the "people" (under capitalism!). The petty-bourgeois
point of view in the critique of imperialism, the domination of the banks,
the financial oligarchy, etc., is that adopted by the authors we have often
quoted, such as Agahd, A. Lansburgh, L. Eschwege, and among the French
writers, Victor Berard, author of a superficial book entitled England and
Imperialism which appeared in 1900. All these authors, who make no
claim to be Marxists, contrast imperialism with free competiton and de-
mocracy; they condemn the Bagdad railway scheme as leading to dis-
putes and war, utter "pious wishes" for peace, etc. This applies also to
the compiler of international stock and share issue statistics, A. Neymarck,
who, after calculating the hundreds of billions of francs representing
"international" securities, exclaimed in 1912: "Is it possible to believe
that peace may be disturbed . . . that, in the face of these enormous
figures, anyone would risk starting a war?"**
Such simplicity of mind on the part of the bourgeois economists is
not surprising. Besides, it is in their tnteres' to pretend to be so naive
and to talk "seriously" about peace under imperialism. But what remains
of Kautsky's Marxism, when, in 1914-15-16, he takes up the same attitude
as the bourgeois reformists and affirms that "everybody is agreed" (im-
perialists, pseudo-Socialists and social pacifists) as regards peace? In-
stead of an analysis of imperialism and an exposure of the depths of its
contradictions, we have nothing but a reformist "pious wish," to wave
it aside, to evade it.
* Quoted by J. Patouillet, L'impdrialisme amMcain, Dijon, 1904, p. 272.
* * Bulletin de I'lnstitut International de Statistique, Vol. XIX, Book II, p. 225.
728 V. I, LENIN
Here is an example of Kautsky 's economic criticism of imperialism.
He takes the statistics of the British export and import trade with Egypt
for 1872 and 1912. These statistics show that this export and import trade
had developed more slowly than British foreign trade as a whole. From
this Kautsky concludes that:
"We have no reason to suppose that British trade with Egypt
would have been less developed simply as a result of the mere opera-
tion of economic factors, without military occupation. . . . The
urge of the present-day states to expand . . . can be best promoted,
not by the violent methods of imperialism, but by peaceful democ-
racy."*
This argument, which is repeated in every key by Kautsky *s . . .
Russian armour-bearer (and Russian protector of the social-chauvinists),
Mr. Spectator, represents the basis of Kautskyan criticism of imperialism
and that is why we must deal with it in greater detail. We will begin with
a quotation from Hilferding, whose conclusions, as Kautsky on many
occasions, and notably in April 1915, declared, have been "unanimously
adopted by all Socialist theoreticians."
"It is not the business of the proletariat," writes Hilferding,
"to contrast the more progressive capitalist policy with that of the
now by-gone era of free trade and of hostility towards the state. The
reply of the proletariat to the economic policy of finance capital,
to imperialism, cannot be free trade, but Socialism. The aim of
proletarian policy cannot now be the ideal of restoring free
competition — which has now become a reactionary ideal — but
the complete abolition of competition by the vanquishment of
capitalism."**
Kautsky departed from Marxism by advocating what is, in the period
of finance capital, a "reactionary ideal," "peaceful democracy" "the mere
operation of economic factors," for objectively this ideal drags us back from
monopoly capitalism to the non- monopolist stage, and is a reformist
swindle.
Trade with Egypt (or with any other colony or semi-colony) "would have
grown more" without military occupation, without imperialism, and with-
out finance capital. What does this mean? That capitalism would develop
more rapidly if free competiton were not restricted by monopolies ingen-
* Karl Kauisky, Nationalstaat, imperialistischer Staat und Staatenbund
(National State, Imperialist State and Union of States), Nuremberg, 1915,
pp. 72, 70.
** Hilferding, op. cit.t p. 504.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 729
era!, by the "connections" or the yoke (i.e., also the monopoly) of finance
capital, or by the monopolist possession of colonies by certain coun-
tries?
Kautsky's argument can have no other meaning; and this "meaning "
is meaningless. But suppose, for the sake of argument, free competition,
without any sort of monopoly, would develop capitalism and trade more
rapidly. Is it not a fact that the more rapidly trade and capitalism develop,
the greater is the concentration of production and capital which gives rise
to monopoly? And monopolies have already come into being — precisely
o u t of free competitionl Even if monopolies have now begun to retard
progress, it is not an argument in favour of free competition, which has
become impossible since it gave rise to monopoly.
Whichever way one turns Kautsky's argument, one will find nothing
in it except reaction and bourgeois reformism.
Even if we modify this argument and say, as Spectator says, that the
trade of the British colonies with the mother country is now developing
more slowly than their trade with other countries, it does not save Kaut-
sky; for it is also monopoly and imperialism that is beating Great Brit-
ain, only it is the monopoly and imperialism of another country (America,
Germany). It is known that the cartels have given rise to a new and peculiar
form of protective tariffs, i.e., goods suitable for export are protected
(Engels noted this in Vol. Ill of Capital). It is known, too, that the cartels
and finance capital have a system peculiar to themselves, that of "export-
ing goods at cut-rate prices," or "dumping," as the English call it: within
a given country the cartel sells its goods at a high price fixed by monopoly;
abroad it sells them at a much lower price to undercut the competitor, to
enlarge its own production to the utmost, etc. If Germany's trade with the
British colonies is developing more rapidly than that of Great Britain
with the same colonies, it only proves that German imperialism, is young-
er, stronger and better organized than British imperialism, is superior
to it. But this by no means proves the "superiority" of free trade, for it
is not free trade fighting against protection and colonial dependence,
but two rival imperialisms, two monopolies, two groups of finance
capital that are fighting. The superiority of German imperialism over
British imperialism is stronger than the wall of colonial frontiers or of
protective tariffs. To use this as an "argument" in favour of free trade
and "peaceful democracy" is banal, is to forget the essential features and
qualities of imperialism, to substitute petty-bourgeois reformism for
Marxism.
It is interesting to note that even the bourgeois economist, A. Lans-
burgh, whose criticism of imperialism is as petty-bourgeois as Kautsky's,
nevertheless got closer to a more scientific study of trade statistics. He did
not compare merely one country, chosen at random, and a colony, with the
•other countries; he examined the export trade of an imperialist country:
1) with countries which are financially dependent upon it, which borrow
730
V. I. LENIN
money from it; and 2) with countries which are financially independent.
He obtained the following results:
EXPORT TRADE OF GERMANY
(million marks)
1889
1908
Per cent
increase
To Countries Financially
Dependent on Germany
Rumania
48.2
70.8
47
Portugal
19.0
32.8
73
Argentina
60.7
147.0
143
Brazil
48.7
84.5
73
Chile
28.3
52.4
85
Turkey
29.9
64.0
114
Total
234.8
451.5
92
To Countries Financially
Independent of Germany
Great Britain ....
651.8
997.4
53
France
210.2
437.9
108
Belgium ....
137.2
322.8
135
Switzerland
177.4
401.1
127
Australia
21.2
64 5
205
Dutch East Indies ....
8.8
40.7
3(>H
Total
1,206.6
2,264.4
87
Lansburgh did not draw conclusions and therefore, strangely enough,
failed to observe that if the figures prove anything at all, they prove that
he is wrong, for the exports to countries financially dependent on Germany
have grown more rapidly y if only slightly, than those to the countries which
are financially independent. (We emphasize the "if," for Lansburgh 's
figures are far from complete.)
Tracing the connection between export trade and loans, Lansburgh
writes:
"In 1890-91, a Rumanian loan was floated through the German
banks, which had already in previous years made advances on this
loan. The loan was used chiefly for purchases of railway materials in
Germany. In 1891 German exports to Rumania amounted to
55,000,000 marks. The following year they fell to 39, 400,000 marks;
then with fluctuations, to 25,400,000 in 1900. Only in very recent
years have they regained the level of 1891, thanks to two new loans.
"German exports to Portugal rose, following the loans of 1888-89,
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 731
to 21,100,000 (1890); then fell, in the two following years, to
16,200,000 and 7,400,000; and only regained their former level
in 1903.
"German trade with the Argentine is still more striking. Fol-
lowing the loans floated in 1888 and 1890, German exports to the
Argentine reached, in 1889, 60,700,000 marks. Two years later they
only reached 18,600,000 marks, that is to say, less than one-third
of the previous figure. It was not until 1901 that they regained and
surpassed the level of 1889, and then only as a result of new loans
floated by the state and by municipalities, with advances to build
power stations, and with other credit operations.
"Exports to Chile rose to 45,200,000 marks in 1892, after
the loan negotiated in 1889. The following year they fell to
22,500,000 marks. A new Chilean loan floated by the German banks
in 1906 was followed by a rise of exports in 1907 to 84,700,000 marks,
only to fall again to 52,400,000 marks in 1908."*
From all these facts Lansburgh draws the amusing petty-bourgeois
moral of how unstable and irregular export trade is when it is bound up
with loans, how bad it is to invest capital abroad instead of "naturally"
and "harmoniously" developing home industry, how "costly" is theback-
sheesh that Krupp has to pay in floating foreign loans, etc.! But the facts
are clear. The increase in exports is closely connected with the swindling
tricks of finance capital, which is not concerned with bourgeois morality,
but with skinning the ox twice — first, it pockets the profits from the loan;
then it pockets other profits from the same loan which the borrower uses
to make purchases from Krupp, or to purchase railway material from
the Steel Syndicate, etc.
We repeat that we do not by any means consider Lansburgh 's figures
to be perfect. But we had to quote them because they are more scientific
than Kautsky's and Spectator's, and because Lansburgh showed the cor-
rect way of approaching the question. In discussing the significance of
finance capital in regard to exports, etc., one must be able to single out
the connection of exports especially and solely with the tricks of the finan-
ciers especially and solely with the sale of goods by cartels, etc. Simply
to compare colonies with non-colonies, one imperialism with another im-
perialism, one semi-colony or colony (Egypt) with all other countries, is
to evade and to tone down the very essence of the question.
Kautsky's theoretical critique of imperialism has nothing in common
with Marxism and serves no other purpose than as a preamble to propa-
ganda for peace and unity with the opportunists and the social-chauvin-
ists, precisely for the reason that it evades and obscures the very profound
and radical contradictions of imperialism: the contradictions between
* Die Bank, 1909, Vol. II, p. 819, et seq.
782 V. I, LENIN
monopoly and free competition that exists side by side with it, between
the gigantic "operations" (and gigantic profits) of finance capital and
"honest" trade in the free market, the contradictions between cartels
and trusts, on the one hand and non-car telized industry, on the other,
etc.
The notorious theory of "ultra-imperialism," invented by Kautsky,
is equally reactionary. Compare his arguments on this subject in 1915,
with Hobson 's arguments in 1902.
Kautsky:
"Cannot the present imperialist policy be supplanted by a new,
ultra-imperialist policy, which will introduce the common exploi-
tation of the world by internationally united finance capital in
place of the mutual rivalries of national finance capital? Such a new
phase of capitalism is at any rate conceivable. Can it be achieved?
Sufficient premises are still lacking to enable us to answer
this question."*
Hobson:
"Christendom thus laid out in a few great federal empires, each
with a retinue of uncivilized dependencies, seems to many the
most legitimate development of present tendencies, and one which
would offer the best hope of permanent peace on an assured basis
of inter- imperialism." **
Kautsky called ultra-imperialism or super-imperialism what Hobson,
thirteen years earlier, described as inter-imperialism. Except for coining
a new and clever word, replacing one Latin prefix by another, the only
progress Kautsky has made in the sphere of "scientific" thought is that
he has labelled as Marxism what Hobson, in effect, described as the
cant of English parsons. After the Anglo- Boer War it was quite natural
for this worthy caste to exert every effort to console the British middle
class and the workers who had lost many of their relatives on the battle-
fields of South Africa and who were obliged to pay higher taxes in order
to guarantee still higher profits for the British financiers. And what better
consolation could there be than the theory that imperialism is not so bad;
that it stands close to inter- (or ultra-)imperialism, which can ensure
permanent peace? No matter what the good intentions of the English
parsons, or of sentimental Kautsky, may have been, the only objective,
i.e., real, social significance Kautsky's "theory" can have, is that of a
most reactionary method of consoling the masses with hopes of perma-
nent peace being possible under capitalism, distracting their attention
from the sharp antagonisms and acute problems of the present era,
* Die Neue Zeit, April 30, 1915, p. 144.
** Hobson, op. cit.t p. 351.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 733
and directing it towards illusory prospects of an imaginary "ultra-imperi.
alism" of the future. Deception of the masses — there is nothing but this
in Kautsky 's "Marxian" theory.
Indeed, it is enough to compare well-known and indisputable facts
to become convinced of the utter falsity of the prospects which Kautsky
tries to conjure up before the German workers (and the workers of all
lands). Let us consider India, Indo-China and China. It is known that
these three colonial and semi-colonial countries, inhabited by six to
seven hundred million human beings, are subjected to the exploitation of
the finance capital of several imperialist states: Great Britain, France,
Japan, the U.S.A., etc. We will assume that these imperialist countries
form alliances against one another in order to protect and extend their
possessions, their interests and their "spheres of influence" in these Asiatic
states; these alliances will be "inter- imperialist," or "ultra-imperialist"
alliances. We will assume that all the imperialist countries conclude an
alliance for the "peaceful" division of these parts of Asia; this alliance
would be an alliance of "internationally united finance capital." As a
matter of fact, alliances of this kind have been made in the twentieth cen-
tury, notably with regard to China. We ask, is it "conceivable," assuming
that the capitalist system remains intact — and this is precisely the as-
sumption that Kautsky does make — that such alliances would be more than
temporary, that they would eliminate friction, conflicts and struggle in
all and every possible form?
This question need only be stated clearly enough to make it impossible
for any reply to be given other than in the negative; for there can be no
other conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of
influence, of interests, of colonies, etc., than a calculation of the strength
of the participants in the division, their general economic, financial, mili-
tary strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division
does not change to an equal degree, for under capitalism the development
of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries cannot
be even. Half a century ago, Germany was a miserable, insignificant coun-
try, as far as its capitalist strength was concerned, compared with the
strength of England at that time. Japan was similarly insignificant com-
pared with Russia. Is it "conceivable" that in ten or twenty years' time
the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained un-
changed? Absolutely inconceivable.
Therefore, in the realities of the capitalist system, and not in the banal
philistine fantasies of English parsons, or of the German "Marxist,"
Kautsky, "inter-imperialist" or "ultra- imperialist" alliances, no matter
what form they may assume, whether of one imperialist coalition against
another, or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers,
are inevitably nothing more than a "truce" in periods between wars.
Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out
of wars; the one is the condition for the other, giving rise to alternating
784 V. i. LENIN
forms of peaceful and non-peaceful struggle out of one and the same basis
of imperialist connections and the relations between world economics and
world politics. But in order to pacify the workers and to reconcile them
with the social-chauvinists who have deserted to the side of the bourgeoi-
sie, wise Kautsky separates one link of a single chain from the other,
separates the present peaceful (and ultra-imperialist, nay, ultra-ultra-im-
perialist) alliance of all the powers for the "pacification" of China (re-
member the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion) from the non-peaceful
conflict of to-morrow, which will prepare the ground for another "peaceful"
general alliance for the partition, say, of Turkey, on the day after to-mor-
row, etc., etc. Instead of showing the vital connection between periods of
imperialist peace and periods of imperialist war, Kautsky puts before the
workers a lifeless abstraction solely in order to reconcile them to their
lifeless leaders.
An American writer, Hill, in his A History of Diplomacy in the Inter-
national Development of Europe points out in his preface the following
periods of contemporary diplomatic history; 1) The era of revolution; 2)The
constitutional movement; 3)The present era of "commercial imperialism."*
Another writer divides the history of Great Britain's foreign policy since
1870 into four periods: 1) The first Asiatic period (that of the struggle
against Russia's advance in Central Asia towards India); 2) The African
period (approximately 1885-1902): that of struggles against France for the
partition of Africa (the Fashoda incident of 1898 which brought France
within a hair's breadth of war with Great Britain); 3) The second Asiatic
period (alliance with Japan against Russia), and 4) The European period,
chiefly anti-German. * * "The political skirmishes of outposts take place on
the financial field," wrote Riesser, the banker, in 1905, in showing how
French finance capital operating in Italy was preparing the way for a po-
litical alliance of these countries, and how a conflict was developing be-
tween Great Britain and Germany over Persia, between all the European
capitalists over Chinese loans, etc. Behold, the living reality of peace-
ful "ultra-imperialist" alliances in their indissoluble connection with
ordinary imperialist conflicts!
Kautsky 's toning down of the deepest contradictions of imperialism,
which inevitably becomes the embellishment of imperialism, leaves its
traces in this writer's criticism of the political features of imperialism. Im-
perialism is the epoch of finance capital and of 'monopolies, which intro-
duce everywhere the striving for domination, not for freedom. The result
of these tendencies is reaction all along the line, whatever the political
system, and an extreme intensification of existing antagonisms in this do-
main also. Particularly acute becomes the yoke of national oppression
* David Jayne Hill, A History of Diplomacy in the International Development
of Europe, Vol. I, p. x.
** Schilder, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 178.
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 736
and the striving for annexations, i.e., the. violation of national independ-
ence (for annexation is nothing but the violation of the right of nations
to self-determination). Hilferding justly draws attention to the connec-
tion between imperialism and the growth of national oppression.
"In the newly opened up countries themselves," he writes, "the
capitalism imported into them intensifies contradictions and ex-
cites the constantly growing resistance against the intruders of the
peoples who are awakening to national consciousness. This resistance
can easily become transformed into dangerous measures directed
against foreign capital. The old social relations become completely re-
volutionized. The age-long agrarian incrustation of 'nations without
history* is blasted away, and they are drawn into the capitalist
whirlpool. Capitalism itself gradually procures for the vanquished
the means and resources for their emancipation and they set out to
achieve the same goal which once seemed highest to the European
nations: the creation' of a united national state as a means to
economic and cultural freedom .This movement for national independ-
ence threatens European capital just in its most valuable and most
promising fields of exploitation, and European capital can maintain
its domination only by continually increasing its means of exerting
violence."*
To this must be added that it is not only in newly opened up countries,
but also in the old, that imperialism is leading to annexation, to increased
national oppression, and consequently, also to increasing resistance. While
opposing the intensification of political reaction caused by imperialism,
Kautsky obscures the question, which has become very serious, of the im-
possibility of unity with the opportunists in the epoch of imperialism.
While objecting to annexations, he presents his objections in a form that
will be most acceptable and least offensive to the opportunists. He addres-
ses himself to a German audience, yet he obscures the most topical and im-
portant point, for instance, the annexation by Germany of Alsace-Lorraine.
In order to appraise this "lapse of mind" of Kautsky 's we will take the fol-
lowing example. Let us suppose that a Japanese is condemning the annex-
ation of the Philippine Islands by the Americans. Will many believe that
he is doing so because he has a horror of annexations as such, and not
because he himself 'has a desire to annex the Philippines? And shall we
not be constrained to admit that the "fight" the Japanese is waging against
annexations can be regarded as being sincere and politically honest only
if he fights against the annexation of Korea by Japan, and urges freedom
for Korea to secede from Japan?
Kautsky Js theoretical analysis of imperialism, as well as his economic
and political criticism of imperialism, are permeated through and through
* Hilferding, op. cit.t pp. 433-34.
786 V. I. LENIN
with a spirit, absolutely irreconcilable with Marxism, of obscuring and
glossing over the most profound contradictions of imperialism and with a
striving to preserve the crumbling unity with*opportunism in the European
labour movement at all costs.
X. THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORY
We have seen that the economic quintessence of imperialism is monop-
oly capitalism. This very fact determines its place in history, for monopo-
ly that grew up on the basis of free competition, and precisely out of
free competition, is the transition from the capitalist system to a higher
social-economic order. We must take special note of the four principal
forms of monopoly, or the four principal manifestations of monopoly
capitalism, which are characteristic of the epoch under review.
Firstly, monopoly arose out of the concentration of production at a
very advanced stage of development. This refers to the monopolist capital-
ist combines, cartels, syndicates and trusts. We have seen the important
part that these play in modern economic life. At the beginning of the twen-
tieth century, monopolies acquired complete supremacy in the advanced
countries. And although the first steps towards the formation of the car-
tels were first taken by countries enjoying the protection of high tariffs
(Germany, America), Great Britain, with her system of free trade, was not
far behind in revealing the same basic phenomenon, namely, the birth of
monopoly out of the concentration of production.
Secondly, monopolies have accelerated the capture of the most impor-
tant sources of raw materials, especially for the coal and iron industries,
wJjich are the basic and most highly cartelized industries in capitalist
socsiety. The monopoly of the most important sources of raw materials
has^J enormously increased the power of big capital, and has sharpened the
antagonism between cartelized and non-cartelized industry.
c Thirdly, monopoly has sprung from the banks. The banks have devel-
oped from modest intermediary enterprises into the monopolists of finance
r capital. Some three or five of the biggest banks in each of the foremost
capitalist countries have achieved the "personal union" of industrial and
baiik capital, and have concentrated in their hands the disposal of thousands
upon thousands of millions which form the greater part of the capital and
income of entire countries. A financial oligarchy, which throws a close net
of relations of dependence over all the economic and political institutions
of contemporary bourgeois society without exception — such is the most
striking manifestation of this monopoly.
Fourthly, monopoly has grown out of colonial policy. To the numerous
"old" motives of colonial policy, finance capital has added the struggle
for the sources of raw materials, for the export of capital, for "spheres of
influence," i.e., for spheres for profitable deals, concessions, monopolist
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST, STAGE OF CAPITALISM "37
profits and so on; in fine, for economic territory in general. When the colo-
nies of the European powers in Africa, for instance, comprised only one-
tenth of that territory (as was the case in 1876), colonial policy was able to
develop by methods other than those of monopoly — by the "free grabbing"
of territories, so to speak. But when nine-tenths of Africa had been seized
(approximately by 1900), when the whole world had been divided up, there
was inevitably ushered in a period of colonial monopoly and, consequent-
ly, a period of particularly intense struggle for the division and the redi-
vision of the world.
The extent to which monopolist capital has intensified all the contra-
dictions of capitalism is generally known. It is sufficient to mention the
high cost of living and the oppression of the cartels. This intensification of
contradictions constitutes the most powerful driving force of the transition-
al period of history, which began from the time of the definite victory of
world finance capital.
Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination instead of striving
for liberty, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak na-
tions by an extremely small group of the richest or most powerful nations —
all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism
which compel us to define it as parasitk or decaying capitalism. More- and
more prominently there emerges, as one of the tendencies of imperialism,
the creation of the "bondholding" (rentier) state, the usurer state, in
which the bourgeoisie lives on the proceeds of capital exports and by "clip-
ping coupons." It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to
decay precludes the possibility of the rapid growth of capitalism. It does
not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain
strata of the bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to a more or less
degree, one or other of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing
far more rapidly than before. But. this growth is not only becoming more
and more uneven in general; its unevenness afco manifests itself, in partic-
ular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital (such as
England).
In regard to the rapidity of Germany's economic development, RiesSer,
the author of the book on the big German banks states:
"The progress of the preceding period (1848-70), which had not
been exactly slow, stood in about the same ratio to the rapidity with
which the whole of Germany's national economy, and with it Ger-
man banking, progressed during this period (1870-1905) as the mail
coach of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation stood to the
speed of the present-day automobile . . . which in whizzing past,
it must be said, often endangers not only innocent pedestrians in
its path, but also the occupants of the car."*
* Riesscr, op. cit.t third edition, p. 354.— Ed.
47-686
738 V. L LENIN
In its tutt^ this finance capital which has grown so rapidly is not un-
willing (precisely because it has grown so quickly) to pass on to a more
"tranquil" possession of colonies which have to be seized — and not only by
peaceful methods — from richer nations. In the United States, economic
development in the last decades has been even more rapid than in Ger-
many, and for this very reason, the parasitic character of modern American
capitalism has stood out with particular prominence. On the other hand, a
comparison of, say, the republican American bourgeoisie with the monarch-
ist Japanese or German bourgeoisie shows that the most pronounced po-
litical distinctions diminish to an extreme degree in the epoch of imperi-
alism — not because they are unimportant in general, but because in all
these cases we are discussing a bourgeoisie which has definite features of
parasitism.
The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the nu-
merous branches of industry, in one of numerous countries, etc., makes it
economically possible for them to corrupt certain sections of the working
class, and for a time a fairly considerable minority, and win them to the
side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or nation against all the others.
The intensification of antagonisms between imperialist nations for the di-
vision of the world increases this striving. And so there is created that bond
between imperialism and opportunism, which revealed itself first and most
clearly in England, owing to the fact that certain features of imperialist
development were observable there much earlier than in other countries.
Some writers, L. Martov, for example, try to evade the fact that there is a
connection between imperialism and opportunism in the labour movement —
which is particularly striking at the present time — by resorting to "official
optimistic" arguments (d la Kautsky and Huysmans) like the following:
the cause of the opponents of capitalism would be hopeless if it were pre-
cisely progressive capitalism that led to the increase of opportunism, or, if
it were precisely the best paid workers who were inclined towards opportun-
ism, etc. We must have no illusion regarding "optimism" of this kind.
It is optimism in regard to opportunism; it is optimism which serves to
conceal opportunism. As a matter of fact the extraordinary rapidity and
the particularly revolting- character of the development of opportunism
is by no means a guarantee that its victory will be durable: the rapid growth
of a malignant abscess on a healthy body only causes it to burst more quick-
ly and thus to relieve the body of it. The most dangerous people of all in
this respect are those who do not wish to understand that the fight against
imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with
the fight against opportunism.
From all that has been said in this book on the economic nature of
imperialism, it follows that we must define it as capitalism in transition,
of, more precisely, as moribund capitalism. It is very instructive in this
respect to note that the bourgeois economists, in describing modern cap-
italism, frequently employ terms like "interlocking," "absence of isola-
IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 739
tion," etc.; "in conformity with their functions and course of develop-
ment," banks are "not purely private business enterprises; they are more
and more outgrowing the sphere of purely private business regulations."
And this very Riesser, who uttered the words just quoted, declares with all
seriousness that the "prophecy" of the Marxists concerning "socialization"
has "not come true"!
What then does this word "interlocking" express? It merely expresses
the most striking feature of the process going on before our eyes. It shows
that the observer counts the separate trees, but cannot see the wood. It
slavishly copies the superficial, the fortuitous, the chaotic. It reveals the
observer as one who is overwhelmed by the mass of raw material and is
utterly incapable of appreciating its meaning and importance. Ownership
of shares and relations between owners of private property "interlock in a
haphazard way." But the underlying factor of this interlocking, its very
base, is the changing social relations of production. When a big enterprise
assumes gigantic proportions, and, on the basis of exact computation of
mass data, organizes according to plan the supply of primary raw materials
to the extemt of two-thirds, or three-fourths of all that is necessary for tens
of millions of people; when the raw materials are transported to the most
suitable place of production, sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles
away, in a systematic and organized manner; when a single centre directs all
the successive stages of work right up to the manufacture of numerous varie-
ties of finished articles; when these products are distributed according to a
single plan among tens and hunderds of millions of consumers (as in the case
of the distribution of oil in America and Germany by the American "oil
trust") — then it becomes evident that we have socialization of production,
and not mere "interlocking"; that private economic relations and private
property relations constitute a shell which is no longer suitable for its con-
tents, a shell which must inevitably begin to decay if its destruction be
delayed by artificial means; a shell which may continue in a state of decay
for a fairly long period (particularly if the cure of the opportunist abscess
is protracted), but which will inevitably be removed.
The enthusiastic admirer of German imperialism, Schulze-Gaevernitz
exclaims:
"Once the supreme management of the German banks has been
entrusted to the hands of a dozen persons, their activity is even today
more significant for the public good than that of the majority of the
Ministers of State." (The "interlocking" of bankers, ministers, mag-
nates of industry and rentiers, is here conveniently forgotten.)
. . . "If we conceive of the tendencies of development which we have
noted as realized to the utmost: the money capital of the nation unit-
ed in the banks; the banks themselves combined into cartels; the
investment capital of the nation cast in the shape of securities, then
• the brilliant forecast of Saint-Simon will be fulfilled: 'The present
47*
740 V. I. LENIN
anarchy of production caused by the fact that economic relations are
developing without uniform regulation must make way for organi-
zation in production. Production will no longer be shaped by isolat-
ed manufacturers, independent of each other and ignorant of man's
economic needs, but by a social institution. A central body of man-
agement, being able to survey the large fields of social economy from
a more elevated point of view, will regulate it for the benefit of
the whole of society, will be able to put the means of production in-
to suitable hands, and above all will take care that there be con-
stant harmony between production and consumption. Institutions
already exist which have assumed as part of their task a certain
organization of economic labour: the banks/ The fulfilment of the
forecasts of Saint-Simon still lies in the future, but we are on the way
to its fulfilment — Marxism, different from what Manx imagined,
but different only in form.*3*
A crushing "refutation" of Marx, indeed! It is a retreat from Marx's
precise, scientific analysis to Saint-Simon's guesswork, the guesswork of
a genius, but guesswork all the same.
Published originally
as a separate pamphlet
in April, 19-17,
Petrograd
Schulze-Gaevernitz in Grundria* der SocialGkonomik, pp. 145-46.
THE WAR PROGRAM
OF THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION
In Holland, Scandinavia and Switzerland, voices are heard among
the revolutionary Social-Democrats — who are combating the social-
chauvinist lies about "defence of the fatherland" in the present imperialist
war — in favour of substituting for the old point in the Social-Democratic
minimum program: "militia, or the armed nation," a new one: "disarma-
ment." The Jugendintemationale (The Youth International) has inaugu-
rated a discussion on this question and has published in No. 3 an editorial
article in favour of disarmament. In R. Grimm's latest theses, we regret
to note, there is also a concession to the "disarmament" idea. Discussions
have been started in the periodicals Neues Leben (New Life) and Vorbote.
Let us examine the position of the advocates of disarmament.
The main argument is that the demand for disarmament is the clearest,
most decisive, most consistent expression of the struggle against all
militarism and against all war.
But this main argument is precisely the principal error of the advocates
of disarmament. Socialists cannot, without ceasing to be Socialists, be
opposed to all war.
In the first place, Socialists have never been, nor can they be, opposed
to revolutionary wars. The bourgeoisie of the imperialist "Great" Powers
has become thoroughly reactionary, and we regard the war which this
bourgeoisie is now waging as a reactionary, slave-owners' and criminal
war. But what about a war against this bourgeoisie? For example, a war
for liberation waged by people who are oppressed by and dependent upon
this bourgeoisie, or by colonial peoples, for their independence? In the
theses of the Internationale group, in§ 5, we read: "In the era of this un-
bridled imperialism there can be no more national wars of any kind.**
This is obviously wrong.
The history of the Twentieth Century, this century of "unbridled im-
perialism," is replete with colonial wars. But what we Europeans, the
741
742 V. I. LENIN
imperialist oppressors of the majority of the peoples of the world, with
our habitual, despicable European chauvinism, call "colonial wars"1
are often national wars, or national rebellions of those oppressed peoples »
One of the main features of imperialism is that it accelerates the develop-
ment of capitalism in the most backward countries, and thereby extends-
and intensifies the struggle against national oppression. This is a fact.
It inevitably follows from this that imperialism must often give rise
to national wars. Junius,* who in her pamphlet defends the above-quoted
"theses," says that in the imperialist epoch every national war against
one of the imperialist Great Powers leads to the intervention of another
competing imperialist Great Power and thus, every national war is con-
verted into an imperialist war. But this argument is also wrong. This
may happen, but it does not always happen. Many colonial wars in the
period between 1900 and 1914 did not follow this road. And it would be
simply ridiculous if we declared, for instance, that after the present war,
if it ends in the extreme exhaustion of all the belligerents, "there can be
no" national, progressive, revolutionary wars "whatever," waged, say,
by China in alliance with India, Persia, Siam, etc., against the Great
Powers.
To deny all possibility of national wars under imperialism is wrong
in theory, obviously mistaken historically, and in practice is tantamount
to European chauvinism: we who belong to nations that oppress hundreds
of millions of people in Europe, Africa, Asia, etc., must tell the oppressed
peoples that it is "impossible" for them to wage war against "our" nations I
Secondly, civil wars are also wars. Anyone who recognizes the class
struggle cannot fail to recognize civil wars, which in every class society
are the natural, and under certain conditions, inevitable continuation,
development and intensification of the class struggle. All the great revolu-
tions prove this. To repudiate civil war, or to forget about it, would
mean sinking into extreme opportunism and renouncing the Socialist
revolution.
Thirdly, the victory of Socialism in one country does not at one stroke
eliminate all war in general. On the contrary, it presupposes such wars..
The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in the var-
ious countries. It cannot be otherwise under the commodity production
system. From this it follows irrefutably that Socialism cannot achieve
victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first
in one or several countries, while the others will remain bourgeois or
pre-bourgeois for some time. This must not only create friction, but a
* Junius — nom de plume of Rosa Luxemburg (1871- 1919), prominent lead*
fer of the Polish and German revolutionary working-class movements and one
of the founders of the Communist Party of Germany. After the suppression
of the January (1919) uprising of the Berlin proletariat, was arrested by the
government of social-betrayers headed by Scheidemann and Noske and brutally
murdered. — JDd.
WAR PROGRAM OF THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 743
direct striving on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush
the victorious proletariat of the Socialist country. In such cases a war
on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for
Socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie. En-
gels was perfectly right when, in his letter to Kautsky, September 12,
1882, he openly admitted that it was possible for already vicarious
Socialism to wage "defensive wars." What he had in mind was defence
of the victorious proletariat against the bourgeoisie of other coun-
tries.
Only after we have overthrown, finally vanquished, and expropriated
the bourgeoisie of the whole world, and not only of one country, will
wars become impossible. And from a scientific point of view it would
be utterly wrong and utterly unrevolutionary for us to evade or gloss
over the most important thing, namely, that the most difficult task, the
one demanding the greatest amount of fighting in the transition to So-
cialism, is to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie. "Social" parsons
and opportunists are always ready to dream about the future peaceful
Socialism; but the very thing that distinguishes them from revolutionary
Social-Democrats is that they refuse to think about and reflect on the
fierce class struggle and class wars that are necessary for the achieve-
ment of this beautiful future.
We must not allow ourselves to be led astray by words. The term
"defence of the fatherland," for instance, is hateful to many, because
the avowed opportunists and the Kautskyites use it to cover up and gloss
over the lies of the bourgeoisie in the present predatory war. This is a
fact. It does not follow from this, however, that we must forget to pon-
der over the meaning of political slogans. Recognizing "defence of the
fatherland" in the present war is nothing more nor less than recognizing
it as a "just" war, a war in the interests of the proletariat; nothing more nor
less, because invasions may occur in any war. It would be simply foolish
to repudiate "defence of the fatherland" on the part of the oppressed
nations in their wars against the imperialist Great Powers, or on the part
of a victorious proletariat in its war against some Galliffet of a bourgeois
state.
Theoretically, it would be quite wrong to forget that every war is
but the continuation of politics by other means: the present imperialist
war is the continuation of the imperialist politics of two groups of Great
Powers, and these politics were engendered and fostered by the sum total
of the relationships of the imperialist epoch. But this very epoch must
also necessarily engender and foster the politics of struggle against na-
tional oppression and the politics of the proletarian struggle against the
bourgeoisie, and therefore, also the possibility and the inevitability,
first, of revolutionary national rebellions and wars; second, of proletarian
wars and rebellions against the bourgeoisie; and, third, of a combine
tion of both kinds of revolutionary war, etc.
744 V. I. LENIN
II
To this must be added the following general considerations.
An oppressed class which does not strive to learn to use arms, to acquire
arms, deserves to be treated like slaves. We cannot forget, unless we
become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists, that we are living in a class
society, that there is no way out of this society, and there can be none,
except by means of the class struggle. In every class society, whether it
is based on slavery, serfdom, or, as at present, on wage labour, the op-
pressing class is armed. The modern standing army, and even the modern
militia — even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, Switzerland,
for example — represent the bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat.
This is such an elementary truth that it is hardly necessary to dwell
upon it. It is sufficient to recall the use of troops against strikers in all
capitalist countries.
The fact that the bourgeoisie is armed against the proletariat is one
of the biggest, most fundamental, and most important facts in modern
capitalist society. And in face of this fact, revolutionary Social-Democrats
are urged to "demand" "disarmament." This is tantamount to the com-
plete abandonment of the point of view of the class struggle, the renun-
ciation of all thought of revolution. Our slogan must be: The arming of
the proletariat for the purpose of vanquishing, expropriating and dis-
arming the bourgeoisie. These are the only tactics a revolutionary class
can adopt, tactics which follow logically from the whole objective devel-
opment of capitalist militarism, and dictated by that development.
Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie will it be able,
without betraying its world historical mission, to throw all armaments
on the scrap-heap; the proletariat will undoubtedly do this, but only
when this condition has been fulfilled, certainly not before.
If the present war rouses among the reactionary Christian Socialists,
among the whimpering petty bourgeoisie, only horror and fright, only
aversion to all use of arms, to bloodshed, death, etc., then we must say:
Capitalist society has always been an endless horror. And if this most
reactionary of all wars is now preparing a horrible end for that society,
we have no reason to drop into despair. At a time when, as every one
can see, the bourgeoisie itself is paving the way for the only legitimate
and revolutionary war, namely, civil war against the imperialist bour-
geoisie, the objective significance of the "demand" for disarmament,
or more correctly, the dream of disarmament, is nothing but an expres-
sion of despair.
We should like to remind those who say that this is a theory divorced
from life, of two world-historical facts: the role of trusts and the
employment of women in industry, on the one hand; and the Paris
Commune of 1871 and the December uprising of 1905 in Russia, on
the other.
WAR PROGRAM OF THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 746
The business of the bourgeoisie is to promote trusts, to drive women
and children into the factories, to torture them there, to corrupt
them, to condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not "demand"
such a development. We do not "support" it; we fight it. But JIQW
do we fight? We know that trusts and the employment of women in
industry are progressive. We do not want to go back to the handi-
craft system, to premonopolistic capitalism, to domestic drudgery
for women. Forward through the trusts, etc., and beyond them to
Socialism!
This argument, is, mutatis mutandis, applicable also to the present
militarization of the people. Today the imperialist bourgeoisie
militarizes not only the adults, but also the youth. To-morrow, it may
proceed to militarize the women. To this we must say: All the better!
The quicker it does this the nearer shall we be to the armed uprisirg
against capitalism. How can Social-Democrats allow themselves to te
frightened by the militarization of the youth, etc., if they. have not for-
gotten the example of the Paris Commune? This is not a "theory divorced
from life." It is not a dream, but a fact. It would be very bad indeed if,
notwithstanding all the economic and political facts, Social-Democrats
began to doubt that the imperialist epoch and imperialist wars must
inevitably bring about a repetition of such facts.
A certain bourgeois observer of the Paris Commune, writing to an
English newspaper, said: "If the French nation consisted entirely of
women, what a terrible nation it would be!" Women, and children of
thirteen and upwards, fought in the Paris Commune side by side with
the men. Nor can it be different in the forthcoming battles for the over-
throw of the bourgeoisie. The proletarian women will not look on passively
while the well-armed bourgeois shoot down the poorly armed or unarmed
workers. They will take to arms as they did in 1871, and from the
cowed nations of today — or more correctly, from the present-day labour
movement, which is disorganized more by the opportunists than by the
governments — there will undoubtedly arise, sooner or later, but with
absolute certainty, an international league of the "terrible nations" of
the revolutionary proletariat.
Militarism is now permeating the whole of social life. Imperialism
is a fierce struggle of the Great Powers for the division and redivision
of the world — therefore, it must inevitably lead to further militariza-
tion in all countries, even in the neutral and small countries. What will
the proletarian women do against it? Only curse all war and everything
military, only demand disarmament? The women of an oppressed class
that is really revolutionary will never consent to play such a shameful
role. They will say to their sons:
"You will soon be a man. You will be given a gun. Take it and learn
to use it. The proletarians need this knowledge not to shoot your broth-
ers, the workers of other countries, as they are doing in the present
746 V. I. LENIN
war, and as you are being told to do by the traitors to Socialism, but
to fight the bourgeoisie of your own country, to put an end to exploi-
tation, poverty and war, not by means of good intentions, but by van-
quishing the bourgeoisie and by disarming it."
If we are to refrain from conducting such propaganda, precisely such
propaganda, in connection with the present war, then we had better
stop using highfalutin phrases about international revolutionary Social-
Democracy, about the Socialist revolution, and about war against war.
Ill
The advocates of disarmament oppose the point in the program about
the "armed nations" for the reason, among others, that this demand,
they allege, easily leads to concessions to opportunism. We have exam-
ined above the most important point, namely, the relation of dis-
armament to the class struggle and to the social revolution. We will now
examine the relation between the demand for disarmament and opportun-
ism. One of the most important reasons why this demand is unaccept-
able is precisely that it, and the illusions it creates, inevitably weaken
and devitalize our struggle against opportunism.
Undoubtedly this struggle is the main question immediately confront-
ing the International. A struggle against imperialism that is not close-
ly linked up with the struggle against opportunism is an idle phrase,
or a fraud. One of the main defects of Zimmerwald and Kienthal, one
of the main reasons why these embryos of the Third International
may possibly end in a fiasco, is that the question of the struggle against
opportunism was not even raised openly, much less decided in the sense
of proclaiming the necessity of breaking with the opportunists. Opportun-
ism has triumphed — temporarily — in the European labour movement.
Two main shades of opportunism have arisen in all the big countries:
first, the avowed, cynical, and therefore less dangerous social-imperial-
ism of Messrs. Plekhanov, Scheidemann, Legien, Albert Thomas
and Sembat, Vandervelde, Hyndman, Henderson, et al\ second, the
concealed, Kautskyite opportunism: Kautsky-Haase and the Social-
Democratic Labour Group in Germany; Longuet, Pressemanne,
Mayeras, et al.9 in France; Ramsay MacDonald and the other leaders
of the Independent Labour Party in England; Martov, Chkheidze
and others in Russia; Treves and the other so-called Left reformists
in Italy.
Avowed opportunism is openly and directly opposed to revolution
and to the incipient revolutionary movements and outbursts, and is
in direct alliance with the governments, varied as the forms of this alii-
WAR PROGRAM OF THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 747
ance may be: from participation in Cabinets to participation in the War
Industries Committees (in Russia). The masked opportunists, the Kaut-
skyites, are much more harmful and dangerous to the labour movement,
because they hide their advocacy of an alliance with the governments
under a cloak of plausible, pseudo- "Marxist" catchwords and pacifist
slogans. The fight against both these forms of prevailing opportunism
must be conducted in all fields of proletarian politics: parliament, trade
unions, strikes, military affairs, etc. The main distinguishing feature
of both these forms of prevailing opportunism is that the concrete ques-
tion of the connection between the present war and revolution is hushed
up, concealed, or treated with an eye to police prohibitions. And this
is done, notwithstanding the fact that before the war the connection
between precisely this impending war and the proletarian revolution
was pointed to innumerable times, both unofficially, and officially
in the Basle Manifesto. The main defect in the demand for disarmament
is its evasion of all the concrete questions of revolution. Or do the
advocates of disarmament stand for a perfectly new species of unarmed
revolution?
To proceed. We are by no means opposed to the fight for reforms. We
do not wish to ignore the sad possibility that humanity may — if the worst
comes to the worst — go through a second imperialist war, if, in spite
of the numerous outbursts of mass unrest and mass discontent, and in
spite of our efforts, revolution does not come out of the present war. We are
in favour of a program of reforms which is also directed against the oppor-
tunists. The opportunists would be only too glad if we left the struggle
for reforms entirely to them, and, saving ourselves by flight from sad
reality, sought shelter in the heights above the clouds in some sort of
"disarmament." "Disarmament" means simply running away from
unpleasant reality and not fighting against it.
In such a program we would say something like this: "The slogan and
the recognition of defence of the fatherland in the imperialist war of
1914-16 is only a means of corrupting the labour movement with the
aid of a bourgeois lie." Such a concrete reply to concrete questions would
be theoretically more correct, much more useful to the proletariat and
more unbearable to the opportunists, than the demand for disarmament
and the repudiation of "all defence of the fatherland"! And we might
add: "The bourgeoisie of all the imperialist Great Powers — England,
France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, Japan, the United States —
has become so reactionary and so imbued with the striving for world
domination, that any war conducted by the bourgeoisie of those
countries can be nothing but reactionary. The proletariat must not
only oppose all such wars, but it must also wish for the defeat of its 'own1
government in such wars; and it must utilize it for revolutionary
insurrection, if an insurrection to prevent the war proves unsuccessful."
On the question of a militia, we should have said: We are not in favour
748 V. I. LENIN
of a bourgeois militia; we are in favour only of a proletarian militia.
Therefore, "not a penny, not a man," not only for a standing army, but
even for a bourgeois militia, even in countries like the United States,
Switzerland, Norway, etc.; the more so that in the freest republican
countries (e.g., Switzerland), we see that the militia is being more and
more Prussianized, particularly in 1907 and 1911, and prostituted by
being mobilized against strikers. We can demand election of officers-
by the people, abolition of military law, equal rights for foreign and na-
tive born workers (a point particularly important for those imperialist
states which, like Switzerland, more and more blatantly exploit increas-
ing numbers of foreign workers while refusing to grant them rights);
further, the right of every hundred, say, of the inhabitants of the given
country, to form voluntary associations, with free election of instructors >
who are to be paid by the state, etc. Only under such conditions could the
proletariat acquire military training really for itself and not for its slave-
owners; and the need for such training is dictated by the interests of the
proletariat. The Russian revolution showed that every success of the
revolutionary movement, even a partial success like the seizure of a
certain city, a certain factory village, a certain section of the
army — inevitably compels the victorious proletariat to carry out just
such a program.
Finally, it goes without saying that opportunism cannot be fought
merely by means of programs; it can be fought only by constant vigilance
to see that they are really carried out. The greatest, the fatal error
the bankrupt Second International committed was that its words did
not correspond to its deeds, that it acquired the habit of unscrupulous
revolutionary phrasemongering (note the present attitude of Kautsky
and Co. towards the Basle Manifesto). Disarmament as a social idea,,
i.e., an idea that springs from a certain social environment and which
can affect a certain social environment — and is not merely a cranky
notion of an individual — has evidently sprung from the exceptionally
"tranquil" conditions of life prevailing in certain small states which
have for a rather long time stood on the side, and hope to stay on the side*
of the bloody world highway of war. To be convinced of this, it is sufficient,,
for instance, to ponder over the arguments advanced by the Norwegian
advocates of disarmament. "We are a small country," they say. "We
have a small army, we can do nothing against the Great Powers [and are,,
therefore, also powerless to resist being forcibly drawn into an imperial-
ist alliance with one or the other group of Great Powers], . . . We want
to be left in peace in our remote corner and continue to conduct our
parochial politics, to demand disarmament, compulsory courts of arbi-
tration, permanent neutrality, etc." ("permanent" after the Belgian
fashion, no doubt).
The petty striving of petty states to stand aside, the petty-bourgeois
desire to keep as far away as possible from the great battles of world
WAR PROGRAM OF THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION 749
history, to take advantage of one's relatively monopolistic position in
order to remain in hidebound passivity — this is the objective social envi-
ronment which may ensure the disarmament idea a certain degree of
success and a certain degree of popularity in some of the small states,
Of course, this striving is reactionary and entirely based on illusions;
for in one way or another, imperialism draws the small states into the
vortex of world economy and world politics.
In Switzerland, for example, the imperialist environment objectively
prescribes two lines to the labour movement. The opportunists, in alliance
with the bourgeoisie, are trying to convert Switzerland into a republi-
can-democratic monopolistic federation for obtaining profits from impe-
rialist bourgeois tourists and to make this "tranquil" monopolistic posi-
tion as profitable and as tranquil as possible.
The genuine Social-Democrats of Switzerland are striving to take
advantage of the comparative freedom of Switzerland and its "inter-
national" situation (proximity to the most highly cultured countries),
the fact that Switzerland, thank God, has not "its own independent'*
language, but three world languages, to widen, consolidate and strength-
en the revolutionary alliance of the revolutionary elements of the pro-
letariat of the whole of Europe. Switzerland, thank God, has not a "spe-
cial" language, but three world languages, precisely those that are
spoken by the adjacent belligerent countries.
If the twenty thousand members of the Swiss Party were to pay a
weekly levy of two centimes as a sort of "extra war tax," we would have
about twenty thousand francs per annum, a sum more than sufficient to
enable us periodically to publish in three languages and to distribute
among the workers and soldiers of the belligerent countries — in spite
of the ban of the General Staffs — all the material containing the
truth about the incipient revolt of the workers, about their fraterniz-
ing in the trenches, about their hope to use their arms in a revolu-
tionary manner against the imperialist bourgeoisie of their "own" count-
ries, etc.
All this is not new. This is exactly what is being done by the best
papers, like La Sentinelle, Volksrecht and the Berner Tagivacht,* unfor-
tunately it is not being done on a sufficiently large scale/Onlyfby such
activity can the splendid decision of the Aarau Party Congress** become
something more than merely a splendid decision.
*La Sentinelle — the organ of the adherents of the Zimmerwald Left in the Swiss
Social-Democratic Party; Volksrecht — a daily newspaper published under the
joint auspices of the Swiss Social -Democratic Party and the Social-Democratic
organization of Zurich; Berner Tagwacht — the official organ of the Swiss Social-
Democratic Party. — Ed.
** Aarau Party Congress— -the Congress of the Swiss Social-Democratic Party
held on November 20-21, 1915,— Ed.
760 V. I. LENIN
The question that interests us now is: Does the demand for disarma-
ment correspond to the revolutionary trend among the Swiss Social-
Democrats? Obviously not. Objectively, "disarmament" is an extreme-
ly national, a specifically national program of small states; it is cer-
tainly not the international program of international revolutionary
Social-Democracy.
Written in the autumn of 1916
First published in German in Nos. 9 and 10
of the magazine Jugendintemationale,
September and October 1917
LETTERS FROM AFAR
FIRST LETTER
THE FIRST STAGE OF THE FIRST REVOLUTION
The first revolution to be engendered by the imperialist World War
has broken out. This first revolution will assuredly not be the last.
To judge by the scanty information at the writer's disposal here in
Switzerland, the first stage of this first revolution, namely, of the Rus-
sian revolution of March 1, 1917, has ended.
This first stage of our revolution will assuredly not be the last.
How could such a "miracle" have happened, that in not more than
eight days — the period mentioned by Mr. Milyukov in his boastful tele-
gram to Russia's representatives abroad — there should have collapsed
a monarchy that had maintained itself for centuries, and that in spite
of everything managed to maintain itself throughout the tremendous,
nation-wide class conflicts of the three years 1905-07?
Miracles in nature and history do not happen. But every abrupt turn
in history, and this applies to every revolution, presents such wealth of
content, unfolds such unexpected and specific combinations of the forms
of struggle and the alignment of forces of the contestants, that to the
lay mind there is much that must appear miraculous.
For the tsarist monarchy to have collapsed in a few days required the
combination of a number of factors of historic importance. We shall men-
tion the chief of them.
Without the tremendous class battles and the revolutionary energy
displayed by the Russian proletariat during the three years 1905-07,
the second revolution could not possibly have been so rapid in the sense
that its initial stage was completed in a few days. The first revolution
(1905) deeply ploughed the soil and uprooted age-old prejudices; it awak-
ened millions of workers and tens of millions of peasants to political
life and political struggle; it revealed all classes (and all the principal
parties) of Russian society to each other — and to the world — in their
true character and in the true alignment of their interests, their forces,
their modes of action, and their immediate and ultimate aims. This
first revolution, and the succeeding period of counter-revolution (1907-14),
751
762 V. I. LENIN
laid bare the very soul of the tsarist monarchy, brought it to the "utmost
limit," exposed the whole rottenness and infamy, the cynicism and dis-
soluteness of the tsar's gang, headed by that monster, Rasputin; it ex-
posed the bestiality of the Romanov family, those pogrom-mongers,
who have drenched Russia in the blood of Jews, workers and revolu-
tionaries— those landlords 9 "first among peers," who own millions of
acres of land and are ready to stoop to any brutality, to any crimes —
who are ready to ruin and strangle any number of citizens in order
to preserve the "sacred right of property" for themselves and their
class.
Without the Revolution of 1905-07 and the counter-revolution of
1907-14, that precise "self-determination" of all classes of the Russian
people and of the nations inhabiting Russia, that determination of the
relation of these classes to each other and to the tsarist monarchy, which
manifested itself during the eight days of the February-March Revolu-
tion of 1917 would have been impossible. This eight-day revolution was
"performed," if we may express ourselves metaphorically, as though
after a dozen major and minor rehearsals; the "actors" knew each other,
their parts, their places, and their setting in every detail, through and
through, down to every more or less significant shade of political trend
and mode of action.
But, while the first great Revolution of 1905, which Messieurs the
Guchkovs and Milyukovs and their hangers-on have branded as a "great
mutiny," led, after the lapse of a dozen years, to the "brilliant," the
"glorious revolution" of 1917 — which the Guchkovs and Milyukovs
proclaim to be "glorious" because it has put them in power (for ihe time
being) — it still required a great, mighty and all-powerful "producer"
who would be capable, on the one hand, of vastly accelerating the course
of world history and, on the other, of engendering world-wide crises of
unparalleled intensity — economic, political, national and international.
Apart from an extraordinary acceleration of world history, it was also
required that history should make particularly abrupt turns, in order
that at one of these turns the filthy and bloodstained cart of the Romanov
monarchy should be abruptly overturned.
This all-powerful "producer," this mighty accelerator was the
imperialist World War.
It is now indisputable that it is a world war, for the United States
and China are today already half-drawn into it, and will be fully drawn
into it to-morrow.
It is now indisputable that it is an imperialist war on both sides. Only
the capitalists and their hangers-on, the social-patriots and social-chau-
vinists, can deny or gloss over this fact. Both the German and the Anglo-
French bourgeoisie are waging the war for the plunder of foreign coun-
tries and the strangling of small nations, for financial supremacy over
the world and the division and redivision of colonies, and in order to
LETTERS FROM AFAR 768
save the tottering capitalist regime by fooling and sowing dissension among
the workers of the various countries.
It was objectively inevitable that the imperialist war should have
immensely accelerated and extremely intensified the class struggle of
the proletariat against the bourgeoisie; it is objectively inevitable that
it shall be transformed into a civil war between hostile classes.
This transformation was started by the February-March Revolution
of 1917, the first stage of which was first of all marked by a joint blow
at tsarism struck by two forces: on the one hand, by the whole of
bourgeois and landlord Russia, with all its unwitting hangers-on and
all its conscious leaders, the British and French ambassadors and
capitalists, and, on the other, by the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers9
Deputies.
These three political camps, these three fundamental political
forces — (1) the tsarist monarchy, the head of the feudal landlords, of
the old bureaucracy and the military caste; (2) the Octobrist and Cadet
Russia of the bourgeoisie and landlords, behind which the petty bourgeoi-
sie trailed; (3) the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which is
seeking to make the whole proletariat and all the poor masses of the popu-
lation its allies — these three fundamental political forces became fully
and clearly revealed even in the eight days of the "first stage" and even
to an observer so remote from the scene of events and obliged to content
himself with the meagre dispatches of foreign newspapers as the present
writer.
But, before speaking of this in greater detail, I must return to that
part of my letter which is devoted to a factor of prime importance,
namely, the imperialist World War.
The belligerent powers, the belligerent groups of capitalists, the
"bosses" of the capitalist system, the slave-owners of the capitalist
slave system, are shackled to each other by the war with chains of iron.
One bloody clot — that is the social and political life of the present
moment in history.
The Socialists who deserted to the side of the bourgeoisie upon the
outbreak of the war — all the Davids and Scheidemanns in Germany and
the Plekhanovs, Potresovs, Gvozdevs and Co. in Russia — clamoured
loud and long against the "illusions" of the revolutionaries, against the
"illusions" of the Basle Manifesto, against the "farcical dream" of
transforming the imperialist war into a civil war. They went through the
whole gamut of praises to the strength, tenacity and adaptability
allegedly revealed by capitalism — they, who had aided the capitalists to
"adapt," tame, fool and disunite the working classes of the various
countries 1
But "he who laughs last laughs best." The bourgeoisie have been un-
able to delay for long the revolutionary crisis engendered by the war. The
crisis is growing with irresistible force in all countries, beginning with
48-685
764 V. I. LENIN
Germany, which, according to an observer who recently visited that coun-
try, is suffering "brilliantly organized starvation," and ending with En-
gland and France, where starvation is also looming, but where organiza-
tion is far less "brilliant."
It was only natural that the revolutionary crisis should have broken
out first of all in tsarist Russia, where disorganization was most monstrous
and the proletariat most revolutionary (not by virtue of any specific
qualities, but because of the living traditions of 1905). Here the crisis
was hastened by the series of most severe defeats suffered by Russia and
her allies. These defeats entirely disjointed the old machinery of govern-
ment and the old order and roused against them the anger of all classes of
the population; they incensed the army, wiped out on a vast scale its
old diehard-noble and rotten-bureaucratic commanding staff, and
replaced it by a young, fresh commanding staff consisting principally
of bourgeois, plebeians, petty bourgeois.
But while the defeats in the war were a negative factor hastening
the outbreak of the crisis, the connection of Anglo-French finance
capital, of Anglo-French imperialism, with the Octobrist and Consti-
tutional Democratic capital of Russia was a factor that speeded the
crisis.
This highly important aspect of the situation is, for obvious reasons,
not mentioned by the Anglo-French press, but is maliciously empha-
sized by the German. We Marxists must face the truth soberly, and rot
allow ourselves to be confused either by the official lies, the sugary diplo-
matic and Ministerial lies of the first group of imperialist belligerents y
or by the sniggering and smirking of its financial and military rivals
of the other belligerent group. The whole course of events in the February-
March Revolution clearly shows that the British and French embassies,
with their agents and "connections," who had for a long time been mak-
ing the most desperate efforts to prevent "separate" agreements and a
separate peace between Nicholas II (who, let us hope and endeavour,
will be the last) and Wilhelm II, directly strove to dethrone Nicholas
Romanov.
Let us harbour no illusions.
That the revolution succeeded so quickly and — seemingly, at the first
superficial glance — so "radically" is due to the fact that, as a result
of an extremely unique historical situation, absolutely dissimilar move-
ments, absolutely heterogeneous class interests, absolutely contrary political
and social tendencies have merged, and merged in a strikingly "harmoni-
ous" manner. There was the conspiracy of the Anglo-French imperialists^
who impelled Milyukov, Guchkov and Co. to seize power for the purpose
of continuing the imperialist war, for the purpose of conducting the war
still more ferociously and obstinately, for the purpose of slaughtering
fresh millions of Russian workers and peasants in order that the Guchkovs
might obtain Constantinople, the French capitalists Syria, the British
JLETTERS FROM AFAR 755
capitalists Mesopotamia, and so on. This on the one hand. On the other,
there was a profound proletarian and mass popular movement of a revo-
lutionary character (a movement of the entire poor population of town
and country) for bread, for peace, for real freedom.
The revolutionary workers and soldiers have destroyed the infamous
tsarist monarchy root and branch, neither elated nor dismayed by the
fact that at certain brief and exceptional historical conjunctures they
were aided by the efforts of Buchanan, Guchkov, Milyukov and Co., whose
desire was simply to replace one monarch by another.
This was the true state of affairs. And this alone must be the view of
a politician who does not fear the truth, who soberly weighs the balance of
social forces in the revolution, who appraises every "given moment" not on-
ly from the point of view of the present, current peculiarities, but also from
the point of view of the deeper-lying springs, the deeper interrelation of the
interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, both in Russia and through-
out the world.
The workers and soldiers of Petrograd, like the workers and soldiers
of the whole of Russia, self-sacrificingly fought the tsarist monarchy —
for freedom, land for the peasants, and peace as against the imperialist
slaughter. Anglo-French imperialist capital, in order to continue and
intensify that slaughter, hatched court intrigues, conspired, incited and
encouraged the Guchkovs and Milyukovs, and prepared to install a new
and ready-made government , which in fact did seize power after the
proletarian struggle had struck the first blows at tsarism.
This government is not a fortuitous assemblage of persons.
They are representatives of the new class that has risen to political
power in Russia, the class of capitalist landlords and bourgeoisie, the
class that for a long time has been ruling our country economically, and
that during the Revolution of 1905-07, during the counter-revolution-
ary period of 1907-14 and finally — and with especial rapidity — during
the war period of 1914-17, organized itself politically with extreme ra-
pidity, taking into its hands the control of the local government bodies,
public education, conventions of every type, the Duma, the War Industry
Committees, etc. This new class was already "nearly" in power by 1917,
and therefore the first blows dealt at tsarism were sufficient to bring
the latter to the ground and clear the way for the bourgeoisie. The impe-
rialist war, which required an incredible exertion of effort, so accelerated
the course of development of backward Russia that we have "at a single
stroke" (or rather as it seemed at a single sholce) caught up with Italy,
England, and almost with France; we have obtained a "coalition," a
"national" (i.e., adapted for carrying on the imperialist slaughter and
for deceiving the people), a "parliamentary" government.
Side by side with this government — which as regards the present war is
but the agent of the billion-dollar "firm," "England and France" — there
has arisen a new, unofficial, undeveloped and as yet comparatively weak
48*
"756 V. I. LENIN
vvrkers' government , expressing the interests of the proletariat and of
the poor section of the urban and rural population as a whole. This is
the Soviet of Workers9 and Soldiers9 Deputies in Petrograd.
Such is the real political situation, which we must first endeavour to
define with the greatest possible objective precision, in order that Marx-
ist tactics may be based upon the only solid foundation upon which
they can be based — the foundation of facts.
The tsarist monarchy has been smashed, but not finally destroyed.
The Octobrist Cadet bourgeois government, which desires to fight
the imperialist war "to a finish," is in reality the agent of the financial
firm "England and France." It is obliged to promise the people the maxi-
-mum of liberties and sops compatible with the maintenance of its power
over the people and the possibility of continuing the imperialist
•slaughter.
The Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies is the embryo of a
^porkers' government, the representative of the interests of the poor mass-
es of the population as a whole, i.e., of nine-tenths of the population,
and is striving for peace, bread and freedom.
The conflict of these three forces determines the situation as it exists
at present, which is transitional from the first stage of the revolution to
the second.
In order to conduct a real struggle against the tsarist monarchy, and
in order that freedom may be guaranteed in fact, and not merely in words,
not merely in the promises of glib liberalism, it is necessary, not that
the workers should support the new government, but that this govern-
ment should "support" the workers 1 For the only guarantee of liberty
and of the complete destruction of tsarism lies in arming the proletariat,
in strengthening, extending and developing the role, significance, and
power of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
All the rest is mere phrasemongering and lies, self-deception on the
part of the politicians of the liberal and radical camp.
Help, or at least do not hinder, the arming of the workers, and liberty
in Russia will be invincible, the monarchy irrestorable, the republic
secure.
Otherwise the people will be fooled. Promises are cheap, promises
-cost nothing. It was with promises that all bourgeois politicians in all
bourgeois revolutions "fed" the people and fooled the workers.
Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution and therefore the workers must
support the bourgeoisie, declare the worthless politicians in the camp
of the Liquidators.
Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution, we Marxists declare; and
therefore the workers must open the eyes of the people to the deception
practised by the bourgeois politicians; they must teach them not to trust
in words, but to depend entirely on their own strength, on their own organ-
ization, on their own unity, and on their own weapons.
LETTERS FROM AFAR 757
The government of the Octobrists and Cadets, of the Guchkovs and
Milyukovs, cannot give peace, bread and freedom even if it sincerely de-
sired to.
. It cannot give peace because it is a war government, a government
for the continuation of the imperialist slaughter, a government of con-
quest, which so far has not uttered a single word in renunciation of the
tsarist policy of seizing Armenia, Galicia, Turkey, of annexing Constan-
tinople, of reconquering Poland, Courland, Livonia, etc. This government
is bound hand and foot by Anglo-French imperialist capital. Russian
capital is merely a branch of the world-wide "firm" which manipulates
hundreds of billions of rubles and is called "England and France."
It cannot give bread because it is a bourgeois government. At best,
it can give the people "brilliantly organized starvation," as Germany did.
But the people will not tolerate starvation. The people will learn, and
probably very soon, that bread exists and can be obtained, but only by
methods that do not respect the sanctity of capital and landownership.
It cannot give freedom because it is a government of landlords and
capitalists, and fears the people.
We shall deal in another article with the tactical problems of our im-
mediate attitude towards this government. We shall there show wherein
lies the peculiarity of the present situation, which is a transition from
the first stage of the revolution to the second, and why the slogan, the
"order of the day," at this moment must be: Workers, you have displayed
marvels of proletarian heroism of the people in the civil war against tsar-
dom. You must display marvels of organization, organization of the proletariat
and of the whole people , in order to prepare the way for your victory in the
second stage of the revolution.
Confining ourselves for the present to an analysis of the class struggle
and the alignment of class forces at this stage of the revolution, we must
ask: who are the allies of the proletariat in this revolution?
It has two allies: first, the broad masses of the semi-proletarian
and partly also of the petty-peasant population of Russia, who number
scores of millions and constitute the overwhelming majority of the popu-
lation. For this mass peace, bread, freedom and land are essential. It
is inevitable that this mass will to a certain extent be under the influence
of the bourgeoisie, particularly of the petty bourgeoisie, to which it is
most akin in its condition of life, vacillating between the bourgeoisie and
the proletariat. The cruel lessons of war, which will be the more cruel
the more vigorously the war is prosecuted by Guchkov, Lvov, Milyukov
and Co., will inevitably urge this mass towards the proletariat, compel
it to follow the proletariat. We must now take advantage of the freedom
given by the new regime and of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers'
Deputies to strive first of all and above all to enlighten and
organize this mass. Soviets of Peasants' Deputies and Soviets
of Agricultural Workers — that is one of our most urgent tasks. In
758 V. L LENIN
this connection our endeavour will be not only that the agricultural work-
ers should establish their own separate Soviets, but that the poor and
propertyless peasants should organize separately from the well-to-do peas-
ants. The special tasks and special forms of organization urgently need*
ed at the present time will be dealt with in the next letter.
The second ally of the Russian proletariat is the proletariat of all
the belligerent countries and of all countries in general. At present this
ally is to a large degree repressed by the war; and the social -chauvinists
in Europe, who, like Plekhanov, Gvozdev and Potresov in Russia, have
deserted to the bourgeoisie, speak all too frequently in its name. But the
liberation of the proletariat from their influence has progressed with every
month of the imperialist war, and it is inevitable that the Russian revo-
lution will immensely accelerate this process.
With these two allies, the proletariat of Russia, utilizing the peculiari-
ties of. the present state of transition, can and will proceed, first, to achieve
a democratic republic and the complete victory of the peasantry over
the landlords, and then to Socialism, which alone can give the war- weary
people peace, bread and freedom.
Pravda Nos. 14 and 15,
April 3 and 4 [March 21 and 22], 1917
Live Music
Archive
Librivox
Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Internet
Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American
Libraries
TV News
Understanding
9/11